


Changes

by creepy_crawly



Series: Two Moons [1]
Category: EXO (Band), K-pop, Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: I Don't Even Know, Pack Dynamics, Pack Feels, Supernatural Elements, Were-Creatures, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-16
Updated: 2014-03-02
Packaged: 2018-01-08 21:50:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 35,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1137781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/creepy_crawly/pseuds/creepy_crawly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which EXO discovers that if one person gets bit by a werewolf, there are shortly twelve of you. Oh, and the supernatural? Not just limited to your television set.</p>
<p>(Featuring werewolf!EXO, Alpha!Kris, Incubus!Onew, and Gumiho!Daesung. Among others. Lots of others.)</p>
<p> The first part of the TWO MOONS series.</p>
<p>Eventual Taoris</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This series will eventually include Taoris, because reasons, all of them known as Mere-unnie. Other ships may sail and sink during the course of the series as a whole. Other warnings include GORE and BLOOD (I'll label these specifically at the head of the chapter), SWEARING, and MENTIONS OF LANGUAGES I DON'T SPEAK. (On that note, if you see I've screwed up in Mandarin, Cantonese, or Korean, gimme a holler and I'll fix it. :D)
> 
>  
> 
> *This story will update regularly on SUNDAY EVENINGS.

As he walked through the late-night market, Lay enjoyed being able to blend in with the busy rush of people. Here, surrounded by people who looked like him, who spoke the same language as him, he was not Lay of EXO but just Yixing. It was strangely freeing, being so totally unrecognized. He hadn’t been expecting this kind of freedom when they’d come to California; in the original plans, all of them had been scheduled down to the second. Reality had been a lot more pleasant, however, and outside of the crowded site that K-Con occupied, they had all found that it was surprisingly easy to just blend in with the rest of the crowd.

 

Thinking of this, he smiled, maybe a little too brightly, at the woman who was bundling up hot buns for him. He accepted the warm package with thanks, and then bought two more, to go. One, he handed to the manager-cum-bodyguard he'd talked into coming down to Chinatown with him. The other, he kept for himself.

 

As they walked down the street, pressing back through the thick throng people, Yixing nibbled at his steambun. He was staying close to the edge, near the alleys, and that was how he saw the dog.

 

It was a sad sight, for sure. Even though the dog had a lot of fur, it was still obvious that it was much too skinny. Its tail looked ragged and tired, tucked against long, stick-thin legs. Big eyes were sunk deep in thick fur, and they followed Yixing (and his food) mournfully. It hesitated, lurking back in the shadows of the alley, but it was clear that the dog wanted what Yixing was holding.

 

Yixing paused, bringing the manager to stop, too. The poor dog looked so hungry… After a moment's hesitation, he tore off a bit of his steambun and set it on the ground.

 

The dog darted forward and gobbled it up. And then raised waiting eyes at Yixing.

 

Laughing, he tore off another piece and leant forward, ready to set the food down. But before he could, the dog jumped forward and snatched the food up. Its teeth also sank into the meat if Yixing's hand.

 

"Ouch!" he cried, stumbling back. He clutched his bitten hand at the wrist, just below where the punctures were starting to well up dark with blood.

 

The manager kicked at the dog, even as he gathered Yixing up. Somehow, despite barely being able to string together a Mandarin sentence, the Korean man managed to get several stall owners nearby to lend a hand. A motherly woman washed the wound and bound it up while someone who looked like his grandfather made him drink tea. They heaped care on him, and only released him when he had drunk enough tea to float.

 

Back at the hotel, an exhausted Yixing entrusted the package of baozi to the manager. The man could distribute the steambuns to the other members without Yixing’s help. As for himself, he showered and crawled into bed, injured hand tucked against his chest. He was asleep in seconds.

 

\---

 

Suho called Kris in, because Suho had gone to thank Yixing for thinking of the whole group, and found him boiling with fever. His face, when he opened the door, was pale and drawn, nervous.

 

“He’s, uh, not really making sense,” Suho explained, closing the door quickly behind the other man. “Not in Korean, anyway.”

 

Kris nodded, understanding. They’d all gotten sick, either during training or after debut, and for those of them that didn’t speak Korean as a first language, communication could become a struggle. He was the worst; with English, Cantonese, Korean, and Mandarin to choose from, he could keep everyone on their toes when he was out of it. “Did you call the manager on duty?”

 

Suho nodded. “He’s on his way up; he has to get someone to stay down at the pool with Kyungsoo and Sehun, first.” Heaving a sigh, he sat down carefully on the edge of Yixing’s bed. “He said that one of the other hyungs said that Xing-ah got bit by a dog this evening.”

 

“A dog?” Kris asked, a sudden, sick feeling gathering in the pit of his belly. “He got bit by a dog? And that’s what’s making him sick?”

 

“I know, it seems crazy. Too soon, right? But that’s what hyung said.”

 

“Diu!” Kris swore, already digging in his pocket for his cellphone.

 

“I know it’s bad if you’re breaking into Cantonese,” Suho said. He smiled, but it was tight, fake, and didn’t reach his eyes. “What do you know that I don’t, Yifannie?”

 

Kris shook his head, cradling his cellphone to his ear. “Something I really, really hope isn’t—ah, Inda? Hi, it’s Yifan—Kevin. I really need to talk to—yeah. Okay. Thank you.” He’d started in Korean and ended in English, and when he next spoke, it was in Cantonese once more.

 

Clearly, Suho wasn’t going to get anything else out of Kris, not while he was in the middle of one of those rapid-fire conversations that only happened when you called home. Suho knew that particular look; he’d seen it frequently enough on the others, and in the mirror. Sighing to himself, he began to stroke Yixing’s sweaty fringe away from his face.

 

He hoped Yixing wasn’t too sick; they had a flight back to Korea the next morning. The long flight over to the United States had been bad enough, back when they were all well. He couldn’t imagine doing it while ill. Too, the show didn’t stop because someone was sick, and they all needed to be on top of their game for their schedules. And if whatever Yixing had  _wasn’t_  from the dog bite, then that meant he’d had it before, which meant that, chances were, someone else in the group had it. Or several someone elses.

 

He looked up as the door opened, admitting a manager, and then down again as Yixing’s teeth closed around his finger. “Ow! _Jenjang,_  Xing-ah, that hurt!” Scowling at the other young man—who didn’t seem to realize anything was wrong, a distant look in his mostly-closed eyes—Suho thrust his injured finger in his mouth. Seriously. Ow.

 

“What’s going on?” the manager asked.

 

Kris, seemingly done with his phone conversation, broke in before Suho could get his finger out of his mouth to speak. “XingXing was bit by a dog, now he’s running a fever. I think it’s something I’ve seen before. I called someone who might know; she’s sending a—” he paused, thinking. “A specialist,” he said finally.

 

The manager’s eyes narrowed. He looked to Suho.

 

Suho shrugged. “He seemed to know what I was talking about when I said Xing-ah had been bit,” he said. “Besides, it’s Yifannie. He knows shit.”

 

The manager snorted. The statement was fairly accurate, for all that it didn’t really seem to fit into this context as well as he would have liked. “Do I need to call a doctor?”

 

“No!” Kris said, his eyes widening. “That is, um. No. But if the staff medic is floating around…”

 

“Let me guess. She could set up an IV, and that would be swell?” the manager asked, raising a suspicious eyebrow.

 

Kris smiled at him. “Or just give him something for the fever?”

 

“Aish, trouble, the lot of you,” the man groaned, but he pulled out his cellphone and started texting rapidly. “And this specialist—is he going to be a problem?”

 

“Hmm? No, no.” Kris shook his head. “He knows about keeping a secret. Trust me.”

 

The manager’s eyes narrowed again, but he said nothing.

 

\---

 

By the time Kris’s phone rang again, he and Suho were sitting by Yixing’s feet, waiting impatiently for the IV to do its work. Yixing had fussed slightly when the nurse employed by SM to keep them all healthy and sane (for a given level of both) had put the needle in, but he’d settled back soon enough. She’d set him up with saline and something for the fever, and was now seated in one of the room’s overstuffed chairs, watching the three young men. The manager was pacing in the other corner, muttering under his breath.

 

Kris’s ringtone shattered the silence. Startled, he slipped off the edge of the mattress as he pulled the phone from his pocket. “Hello?”

 

The person on the other end said something, and Kris just listened, absentmindedly patting Yixing’s feet to settle him.

 

“Okay. I’ll have someone walk you up, yeah.” He hung up, then turned to the manager. “Hyung, that’s our specialist. He says he’s wearing a red shirt? He’s down in the lobby. Could you…”

 

The manager sighed, but nodded. “You sure you trust him?” he asked.

 

Kris nodded. “With my life.”

 

With another sigh, the manager left.

 

Only then did Suho speak up. “This specialist…in what?”

 

Kris cringed. “It…it might be better for him to say, actually,” he temporized, shooting a nervous look at the medic. “It might sound…crazy.”

 

Suho treated him to a flat stare. “Are you risking Yixing’s life?”

 

Kris shook his head. “No,” he said, swearing strongly. “That much, I promise you. These people know how to keep a secret.”

 

Behind him, the medic raised an eyebrow, but she said nothing.

 

They waited, in an awkward quiet, until the door opened once more. The young man trailing behind the manager was nothing like Kris had expected; for one, he was a young man, not a grown adult. He looked to be around Kris’s age, not much older, perhaps even younger. His bright red shirt advertised for “FULL MOON ENERGY PILLS – THEY’LL MAKE YOU HOWL!” and had a cartoonishly drawn werewolf on it. He was clutching a briefcase, and his eyes darted rapidly around the room.

 

“Hi,” Kris said, greeting him in English. “Stiles?”

 

The boy nodded. “Hi, yeah. Stiles. You must be Yifan.” He thrust out a hand. As they shook, he spoke up again, this time in Mandarin. “And, uh. If this is easier. I speak Mandarin.”

 

Kris blinked at him. “Yeah, actually, a little. You speak Mandarin?”

 

The boy smirked. “Strange, right? But this is California, man. Mandarin’s taught in schools. It was my foreign language in high school. And in college. Probably why Meiyee called me instead of someone who lives around here all the time.” Again, he looked around the room. “So. Wanna tell me what’s going on?”

 

“Let me introduce you around, first,” Kris said, noting the look on Suho and the manager’s faces. He switched to Korean, realizing that this was already shaping up to be one hell of a long night. “Hyungs, this is Stiles. He’s American, and what’s happened to Yixing—what I think has happened to Yixing—is his specialty.”

 

Stiles waved awkwardly. “Hi,” he offered.

 

Suho looked at him for a long moment, and then looked to Kris. “You?” he told the other man, “you are going to owe me. I’m going to get hyung out of here before he cries. You better let me in on the secret.” That said, he grabbed the manager and cajoled him out of the room.

 

Stiles, watching them go, winced. “I’m really not that frightening,” he said, shaking his head. His eyes darted to the medic.

 

She waved at him. “Park Yunmi,” she said. “You’re here because he’s been wolf-bit.”

 

Stiles and Kris both stared at her. For all that her Mandarin had been shaky and awkward, the meaning behind her words was clear.

 

“You didn’t tell me someone here already knew!” Stiles enthused, setting his briefcase down on the room’s table. “Wow, you don’t really need me, then.”

 

“I didn’t know,” Kris said.

 

Yunmi shook her head. “I don’t know much,” she said. “I know it exists. But that’s it. I work with somethi—someone else.”

 

Kris folded that mystery away for later contemplation, even as he watched Stiles wave away her explanation.

 

“That’s okay, that’s okay. It means you’ll learn faster,” the young man said. As he spoke, he was pulling a large binder out of his briefcase, as well as a small organza bag. “Saves me having to figure out who can help them when these guys get home, anyway.” He turned to look at Kris. “So. Your friend—he speaks Mandarin?”

 

“I do,” Yixing grumbled, his eyes cracking open. He didn’t move from the strange half-curl he had fallen asleep in. “Who are you?”

 

“Hi, I’m Stiles, I’m here to check you out—wait, no, wow, that sounded wrong. Not check you out like check you out, more like check you out like look you over? See what’s wrong with you. If there’s something wrong with you. But you’re sick so I think there’s something wrong with you.”

 

Yixing blinked slowly. “Are you always like this?”

 

“Normally? I’m worse,” Stiles told him. “Now, Yifan said you got bit by an animal?”

 

“A dog,” Yixing confirmed. He held out his injured hand.

 

“Were you sick before?” Stiles asked, his eyes on where he was unwrapping the bandages.

 

“No, I felt fine.”

 

Stiles was careful not to touch the bite, swollen and red as it was. He felt around the edges of the wound, looking over the rest of Yixing’s hand, comparing it to the unbitten hand. “Anyone around you sick?”

 

“We’ve all been healthy,” Kris said. He was standing at the foot of the bed, watching Stiles interact with his member. “Not even a cough.”

 

Stiles nodded, absentminded. “Okay, two things, then I can confirm that Yixing is suspecting the right things. One, start flipping through this notebook. Do you read English—no? Good. Just look at the pictures. Stop when you get to one that looks like what bit you. I’ll be right back with the rest.”

 

He stood up from the bed, leaving Kris to get Yixing sitting upright and looking through the binder.  Opening the organza bag, he waved Yunmi over. He explained something to her, quiet, gesturing with one of the small jars. She asked him a question, equally quiet, and he replied. Kris gave up on trying to listen in to what they were saying; even as the conversation drew on and the gestures grew sharper and more emphatic, their voices stayed low and quiet.

 

“I think I found it,” Yixing said suddenly, stopping on a picture near the back of the binder.

 

Kris looked at the photo the other man had selected, curious. It had thick fur, at least on its body. Its legs were a bit more streamlined, for all that they were short. It was a dusty red-brown colour, with bits of paler cream and darker shades of brown in places. It looked like a dog, in some ways, but the bright eyes, the triangular ears, and the shape of its head belied the truth. It was a wolf.

 

A Tibetan Wolf, at that, Kris saw, taking advantage of the English title on the page. He started to read the rest of the paragraph beneath the photo, but Stiles was already taking the binder out of his hands.

 

“Ooh, a Tibetan Wolf. Nice, classy. At least it’s native to your area, I guess. That’s a good thing. More suited for the climate and the culture, you know? And hey, if you have to be  _lang ren_ , at least you can be a local one. Blends in way better.”

 

“ _L-lang ren_?” Yixing stammered.

 

“Yeah, about that…take a sniff.” Stiles held out a jar.

 

Obedient, Yixing sniffed—and then sneezed violently, before curling back into a tight little ball and whining low in his throat. He struggled slightly as Yunmi reached for his wrist, but eventually he let her take his pulse.

 

Stiles, putting away the jar, looked at her. When she nodded, he nodded back, and then came back to where Yixing was hiding and Kris looked ready to commit homicide. “Sorry about that,” he said, voice quiet and calmer than it had been all night. “That one’s, like, the last straw of proof. I needed it before I could really explain this to you. I know it stings—well, okay, I don’t _know_  know, like, I’ve never sniffed it and gotten the hell of a headache you’re probably rocking right now, but I’ve seen enough people do it—and I’ve made enough of them do it, too, to be honest—that I have  a good idea. And yeah, it sucks, but I had to do it, because otherwise, there would still be a little bit of doubt, a little bit of maybe maybe not, and you can’t have that right now.”

 

Carefully, he drew the blanket away from Yixing’s face. “So, let’s do this the right way, hmm? Hi, I’m Stiles. I’m the Emissary for the Hale Pack of Beacon Hills, California. I am human. Sort of.”

 

Yixing only blinked at him.

 

Kris smiled slightly, glad to see that the other had settled. Sitting down at the foot of the bed, near enough Stiles to stop him if he did anything, protecting Yixing’s curled form, he took a deep breath. “And I’m Wu Yifan, human member of the Harris-Beeker Pack of Vancouver, British Columbia.” Seeing the way Yixing turned that rabbit-eyed stare on him, he reached forward and stroked a sweaty strand of hair out of that familiar face. “That’s how I knew to call Stiles.”

 

“High fever and delusions shortly after being bit by a dog-like creature is usually my thing,” Stiles said, nodding. “Because when we—when Yifan and I—say pack, what we’re talking about is werewolves.  _Lang ren_. Wolfpeople. Shapeshifters.”

 

“Not real,” Yixing gritted out.

 

“Yes real,” Stiles replied. “Very real. My best friend was bitten our freshman year of high school. This has been my life for eight years. Eight  _long_  years. I’ve learned to recognize wolves, among other supernatural beings, work with them, and help new wolves get where they need to be. Like his aunt.” He gestured to Kris. “She does my job for a different pack, a different part of the world.”

 

Kris nodded. “Like Stiles said. She’s human. Sort of.”

 

“I don’t believe you.”

 

Stiles laughed. “No one ever does,” he said, pulling out a tablet. He tapped rapidly on the screen. “Here. You might not understand what he’s saying, but this is Derek. Derek’s my. He’s…well, technically he’s my Alpha. One of my Alphas? My boss. My friend. Okay, the pack situation where I’m from is weird, not a model to be followed, et cetera et cetera. He’s also a born wolf.”

 

Yixing’s eyes were glued to the little screen. “No way that’s…”

 

“Real? It’s real. What, you think I’d go to that much trouble CGI-ing something filmed in that low quality for a joke? As if. Even I don’t have that kind of attention-span, drugs or no. Now, normally I show this video as a hey, surprise, here’s what you can do! But you’re a different species—breed? Different kind of wolf from Derek and Scott—he’s the stupid looking one.”

 

Kris looked at Stiles. “How different?”

 

Stiles made a face. “Hard to say? I’m more familiar with Eurasian Grey weres, to be honest, because that’s what ninety percent of the people I run with are. I mean, the basics are still the same—wolf-human shape-shifting, the moon has influence, the wolf looks to an Alpha, infectious bite, et cetera.”

 

“But?” Yixing asked, his voice a harsh croak. He coughed, clearing his throat. “Something’s different.”

 

“Yeah,” Stiles said, nodding. “The bite’s more infectious—anyone can change someone, not just an alpha. Pack structure is less rigid. It was the Asian weres that really started bringing humans in on a higher level in their packs, and that’s why. Look, this is going to be a mess to explain. When do you guys leave?”

 

“Tomorrow afternoon,” Kris said. He reached up and ran a hand through his hair. “At least, we’re supposed to. Will it be safe?”

 

Stiles bit his lip, obviously considering. “Likely. If he’s around someone who he looks up to, someone he respects.”

 

“Duizhang,” Yixing said, snickering. He weakly toed Kris’s thigh.

 

Kris laughed, too. “I can control him,” he said to Stiles, placing a hand on the lump of Yixing’s blanket covered foot. 


	2. Chapter 1

Last Time:

 

_"When do you guys leave?”_

_“Tomorrow afternoon,” Kris said. He reached up and ran a hand through his hair. “At least, we’re supposed to. Will it be safe?”_

_Stiles bit his lip, obviously considering. “Likely. If he’s around someone who he looks up to, someone he respects.”_

_“Duizhang,” Yixing said, snickering. He weakly toed Kris’s thigh._

_Kris laughed, too. “I can control him,” he said to Stiles, placing a hand on the lump of Yixing’s blanket covered foot._  

 

**Chapter One**

 

“Derek, I need you to call me. I’ve found the rogue. It’s near Chinatown. It bit someone—he’s changing. Call me?”

 

Stiles sat on a bench in the park, flipping his phone over and over in his hands. He and Derek had come down on the heels of a rumour of a rogue, to help find and remove the danger and to help its victims find a pack to take them in. Before this evening, they’d been lucky; there’d only been three human victims, all of whom had been easily taken into small packs around the area. But tonight had thrown a wrench in the works. While they had figured out where the rogue was hiding, it was in a highly-populated area, and the person it had bit made the whole situation a hell of a lot messier.

 

Yixing, the newest victim, couldn’t be folded into a local pack. He was going to return home, and soon. Stiles didn’t have connections in Seoul, not the way he had connections in Canada and Mexico and, strangely enough, London. That made it all the better that the other man, Yifan, seemed to know about wolves, and the medic. Hopefully they knew of a pack that would take the boy.

 

He started, just a little, when his phone rang; years of knowing Derek and Scott and the particular brand of  _completely fucking nuts_  they attracted had left him more than a little jumpy. Seeing Derek’s number on the screen, he answered.

 

“Yo, Derek!”

 

“You found the rogue?”

 

“Hello to you, too, and might I say, yeah, I’m doing splendid, how are you?”

 

“Stiles—”

 

“Chill, wolfman. Use the FriendFinder app I loaded on your phone, come to me. We can go find the rogue.”

 

There was a beep as Derek hung up. Stiles pulled the phone away from his ear and gave it a disgusted look.

 

\---

 

After waking up to a furry, be-tailed Yixing licking his face gleefully, Kris was pretty sure that the day could not get any worse. Which was unfortunate, considering his unpleasant wake up call came before ten in the morning, and he still had a twelve hour flight to look forward to, and trans-pacific flights were exercises in loathing under the best of circumstances. 

 

 He talked Yixing back into his human form using the half-remembered instructions he’d once heard his aunt giving to new wolves in the old pack. Whether the advice was that good, Yixing trusted him that much, or the process really was just that much instinct, Kris would never know. It had the wanted effect, however, and soon Yixing was standing in front of him, bright-eyed and, thankfully only metaphorically, bushy-tailed. Kris had given him the quick rundown on how wolfdom worked--at least for his wolf pack back in Canada; he was still waiting on the promised pdf file from that Stiles kid.

 

Super strength, super smell, super hearing--three things that were going to be a hell of a lot of fun to hide, especially from the other members. Both he and Yixing had agreed that they weren’t going to tell anyone before they told Suho and the primary manager, which wasn’t going to happen until they were back in Seoul. Given that they were going to be stuck in a small metal tube for half the day, neither of the men was all that excited about getting home.

On the other hand, their apartment in Korea, with its familiar smells and comforting spaces, would probably help Yixing’s wolf settle, or so Kris had mused while brushing his teeth.

 

And therein lay the trick, didn’t it? Because the transformation between human and were happened under stress, keeping Yixing calm was going to be key in helping him and the entire group make the necessary adjustments to their lives. Before leaving, Stiles had mentioned that the kind of wolf that had bitten Yixing--a were breed that resembled the Tibetan wolf--had the ability to shift between human, partial wolf, and full wolf (as Kris had woken up to). Hiding clawed hands and furry jowls was one kind of nightmare. But hiding a full grown wolf?

 

Kris wondered if it was too early to start drinking.

 

\---

 

Suho’s eyes fluttered as he leant back in the seat, trying to relax his shoulders. He felt like shit, from head to toe, but his shoulders were the worst. Probably stress from what happened to Yixing. And, ugh, he needed to get the details of whatever super-secret conversation had taken place out of Kris, and soon.

 

Well, at least Yixing had looked better this morning. He’d seemed a little… _stretched_ , pale and tired, maybe, but the bite on his hand had faded to a dull red mark, and it didn’t seem to be paining him overmuch. He’d stretch his hand every once in a while, flexing it, but other than that, he ignored the wound. The fever he’d had last night appeared to have broken, too, and left no sigh that it had been there.

 

He was more worried about Kris, honestly. The other leader had spent all morning whispering furtively on his phone in what Suho presumed was Cantonese, given the way he was avoiding Tao like the plague. That avoidance wasn’t going over the younger man’s head, either, which was unfortunate. He was starting to look like a kicked puppy.

 

Suho wasn’t the only one who’d noticed that, either. Minseok was side-eyeing his leader, hard, his lips thinned. If he hadn’t been already seated, his hands would have been on hips. Suho was willing to bet good money on that. Still, rather than raising a fuss—at least in a public place; he wasn’t sure that Minseok wouldn’t chew Kris out in private—Minseok waved Tao over to sit beside him.

 

“TaoTao!” he said brightly, patting the seat beside him. “Come on. Sit with  _hyung._ We’ve got twelve hours. Surely you can help me with Chinese.”

 

Tao’s face lit up as a smile started to creep across it. “Oh,  _gege_ ,” he said, laughing in that little, silent way of his. “It’s probably gonna take a lot longer than that.”

 

But he sat down beside Minseok, and his attention was drawn away from Kris, so Suho counted it as a win, anyway.

 

 That was about the only win it seemed he was going to get. His shoulders were as tight as ever they had been, to say nothing of the way every single muscle in his body was clamoring for attention. He ached and he hurt and he just wanted to sleep away this flight, in the hopes that he would wake up, at home, feeling less like something that had been run over.

 

Suho, like all k-idols, was no stranger to the peculiar, weighty ache of sleep deprivation and overwork. But whatever was currently wracking his joints and clawing his brain was a different beast; that much was obvious from the start. Hopeful, he’d popped some Tylenol that morning, but it hadn’t really helped. Maybe he’d try some Narfen, later. Wouldn’t be the first time he’d mix-and-matched pain medications.

 

Next to him, Sehun was already lost in a book, lips moving ever-so-slightly as he read. He would likely finish it soon, but that was okay. As soon as the plane was in the air, Sehun would move to his video games, or maybe even catch some sleep.

 

Sleeping seemed like a good idea. With a nod to Sehun, Suho closed his eyes, tugged the eyemask from his bag over his face, and set about seeking some rest.

 

\---

 

Suho woke up to a cold hand pressed against the underside of his chin, feeling at his throat. He fussed slightly, batting at the arm in front of him, struggling to crack his eyes open. Someone had taken his eyemask.

 

“Hey there, Suho,” SM’s private nurse said, her lips quirking. “How are you feeling?”

 

Closing his eyes again—when had the plane gotten so bright?—he mumbled something.

 

“I thought so,” the woman said. “Kris came and got me. You’re not looking so wonderful, I’m afraid.” She started rifling through her bag. “Have you taken anything today?”

 

“Just Tylenol,” he said.

 

She hmmed her agreement. Finding something, she pulled out a bottle of pills. “Two of these, and then I’m going to give you a quick injection.”

 

Suho stuck out a hand, waiting for the ibuprofen. When the nurse dropped the pills into his hand, and thrust a water bottle into the other, he quickly knocked them back. After chasing the pills with several slugs of water, he opened his eyes again and took another look at her. “Do you know what I’ve got?”

 

Preparing the syringe, the nurse shrugged. “Honestly? Probably some kind of upper respiratory infection; that’s the most common thing. My goal right now is to get you so that we can get you home and then I’ll work out the details.” Without so much as a by-your-leave, she yanked up his shirt and swabbed his abs. She sank the needle in easily, depressing the plunger and injecting him with what looked to be the standard booster mix.

 

As she rose to her feet, the nurse cast a long look over Suho. “You should start feeling better soon,” she said, putting her tools away. “We’ll be back in Seoul in about an hour, and that injection should hold you for about two after that. Long enough to get you into bed, at least.”

 

Suho nodded, leaning back into the seat. “And Yixing?”

 

“Hmm?”

 

“How is Yixing?” he asked.

 

The nurse nodded, understanding. “Yixing’s doing well,” she said. “He’s not feverish, not in anything more than residual pain. He’s doing quite well. You, on the other hand…” She handed him a mask. “I sent Sehun to my seat, so he shouldn’t get sick. Do try not to breathe on me too much, though, would you?”

 

\---

 

Yixing was drooling on his shoulder, but that wasn’t what had Kris worried. No, his attention was caught far more by the way Suho’s teeth, revealed in quick flashes by his grimaces, seemed to be much larger and sharper than they should have been. His hands, too—or at least his fingers. The one ring he was wearing looked tight and uncomfortable, and his fingernails had a familiar, frightening arc to them.

 

When had he been bitten, Kris wondered. Yixing had gone from just-bitten to groaning and hallucinating in pain in a couple of hours, with his full transformation taking less than twelve hours, all told. So if Suho was starting to change—and he was, there was no mistaking the sit of wolf teeth and wolf claws on a human body, not if you had grown up with it and seen it in all its many shifts and shapes—he must have been bitten recently. But not by Yixing. Yixing had been next to Kris on the flight back, and he certainly hadn’t bit Suho.

 

Not on the flight, anyway, Kris realized. But earlier…with a sinking feeling of horror, Kris thought about the night before. Had he seen Suho stick a hand in his mouth? Why would he do that, except that it hurt? And he’d been stroking Yixing’s forehead…

 

Shit. Another one of the members bit, and this one that Kris didn’t have any control over. Well, at least he had been planning on telling Suho the truth, and soon. Looked like that explanation was going to be more important than he had been expecting.

 

\---

 

Minseok watched his leader half-carry Suho into the apartment building while Yixing followed close on their heels, manager- _noona_  meeting them at the door. Lips thin, he turned to find Tao.

 

The younger man was staring after Kris’s retreating back, his dark-rimmed eyes wide and sad. He looked like he had started to say something, only to freeze halfway through. His shoulders were slumped, tired; the bag in his hand was nearly touching the ground.

 

Minseok didn’t care if it took him all day to pin down his leader; he was going to give Kris the bollocksing of a lifetime for the look on Tao’s face! Kris  _knew_  how much his attention meant to Tao,  _knew_  how much the younger man looked up to him, and normally he took that into consideration. He made time for Tao, usually, which made this sudden and complete avoidance all that more obvious. Hell, even Chanyeol was looking between where Tao was standing and the door swinging shut behind Kris, a confused look on his face.

 

“Taozi,” Minseok said quickly, sliding into Mandarin, glad his language skills would at least let him get through this. “Come on, let’s get inside. Can’t have Lulu beating us to the hot water, can we?”

 

Tao looked over at him, clearly trying to bury his hurt. “Yeah,  _gege_ ,” he agreed. Though his eyes shone brightly and there was a suspicious thickness to his voice, not a single tear slid down his cheek. “Yeah,” he repeated, stronger. “Lu- _ge_  always steals the hot water.”

 

“Do not,” Luhan said, sidling up between them. He flung an arm around Tao’s hips. “It’s not stealing if the rest of you leave it to me.”

 

“Pretty sure we not leaving it to you if you race in there before the rest of us even have our shoes off,” Minseok said, flicking Luhan’s ear gently.

 

Luhan clapped a hand over his abused ear, then pouted at the Korean man. “Mean,” he said. Then, after a moment, “and I think you forgot a verb.”

 

Mentally retracing his sentence, even as he led the way into the relative warmth of the parking garage’s foyer, Minseok realized he was right. “We are not,” he said, trusting that the other two would know what he meant and where he meant it.

 

They seemed to; Tao pressed the button to call the elevator, nodding, but adding nothing. That was one of the nice things about M. They had bonded through mutual misunderstandings in all directions, starting with Yixing, Tao, and Luhan’s first efforts to learn Korean, adding in the fact that Kris defaulted to English more than he liked to admit, a pinch of Cantonese not shared by the majority of the members, and capped off by Minseok and Chen’s struggles to learn Mandarin. Children’s television was depressingly popular in their dorm, along with the more accepted news and variety programs in the language of the moment.

 

Kyungsoo squished into the elevator with them, racing past the doors at the very last second. He beamed, then quickly swiped his key card and punched the button for their floor. “Glad to be back?” he asked them.

 

“So glad,” Luhan groaned, flopping against Tao. His slide into Korean was nearly flawless, accent slipping away with every syllable. “I miss my bed.”

 

“Just last night you were saying you planned on stealing the hotel bed,” Tao said, arching an eyebrow at the older man.

 

Grinning up from his shoulder, Luhan winked. “Just because my heart expands to include others, doesn’t mean I will forget my first lo—ow! Jesus, MinMin!”

 

Minseok was utterly unrepentant for the heavy-duty pinch he had delivered. “Stop teaching the  _dìdì_ shitty drama lines, LuLu.”

 

Kyungsoo snorted. “Pretty sure Tao watches enough shit dramas without Luhan’s help, Min-ah. It may already be a lost cause.”

 

Minseok waved a finger at him. “Don’t you start, Kyung-ah. I will keep the little one’s language pure, I will.”

 

“Shit,” Tao murmured, counting off on his fingers. He used one to point forward, showing that the door to the elevator had opened. “Fuck. Damn. Bitch. Cock. Goddamn. Hell. Cu—”

 

“That’s enough,  _dìdì_ ,” Chen said, cutting him off as he exited the staircase, followed closely by Sehun and Chanyeol. “I don’t want to know who or what got you started, but point proved. You can swear.”

 

“There is a difference between swearing and bad melodrama,” Minseok said, punching in the door code. They’d gotten more a secure system, ever since the latest round of  _sasaeng_  fans turning up where they shouldn’t be; you had to unlock the code box with one of the magnet keys—the same ones used for the elevator—and then input the code. He did so, and opened the door to the apartment M was currently sharing. As he toed off his shoes, he stuck his head out the door. “See you later, Kyung-ah?”

 

“Later,” Kyungsoo confirmed, opening the door to K’s apartment.

 

Tao rolled his eyes, gathering up the shoes the other members had kicked all over the entrance way. “Like you’re not watching those dramas with me, Min- _ge_ ,” he said, starting to tuck everyone’s shoes together in pairs in the shoe shelf beside the door.

 

Minseok waved a negligent hand in the air. “Not important.” He leant over, picked up his bag, and headed towards the room he and Chen shared. “Did the hyungs say when our luggage would arrive?” he called back over his shoulder.

 

“No,” Luhan groaned, rolling his shoulders and kicking his bag down the hall. He smiled his thanks at Tao for cleaning up, then kicked his bag another couple of feet. “Should be soon? Ish?”

 

“I’m just glad they decided to send us on,” Chen said, “instead of having us wait around at the airport.” He exchanged a look with Luhan. “Fans are getting a little handsy.”

 

“Just a little,” Tao agreed, snide. He stretched, popping his back, and yawned. “Ugh. I ache.”

 

Minseok thrust his head out from the room. “Tao- _ya_? Does  _hyung_ need to give you a backrub tonight?”

 

Tao treated him to a pathetic look. “Please?”

 

“Just remind me,” the older man said, nodding.

 

A scream from K’s apartment split the air. It hung in the air, crystal-clear and glass-edged sharp, before the silence shattered and all of the men lurched toward the door.


	3. Chapter 2

Last time:

 

_Minseok thrust his head out from the room. “Tao-ya? Does_ hyung _need to give you a backrub tonight?”_

 

_Tao treated him to a pathetic look. “Please?”_

 

_“Just remind me,” the older man said, nodding._

 

_A scream from K’s apartment split the air. It hung in the air, crystal-clear and glass-edged sharp, before the silence shattered and all of the men lurched toward the door._

 

 

**CHAPTER TWO:**

 

This was not how Kris had wanted to explain what was going on to the other EXO members, nor was it how he had wanted them to learn about the supernatural. But, as his aunt had often said, if wishes were fishes, people could walk on the sea.

 

At least he wasn’t the only one drowning. The nurse, Yunmi- _ssi_ , looked well out of her depth, and the horrified faces the other members were wearing would have been funny in just about any other circumstances. Furthermore, their manager- _noona_ and several of the manager- _hyungs_  had all hauled ass in to K’s apartment upon hearing the screams, so now he had that to deal with.

 

Oh, and one very amused Kim Kibum, whose lithe body was propped elegantly against a doorframe, like he was a statue put there to give the room some class. His carefully-shaped eyebrows were raised, and amusement had curled the corners of his lips. He was enjoying this.

 

Kris took a deep breath, trying to focus and calm himself. He would do no one any good if he was losing it, himself. And much as he wanted to punch Key in the face—so tempting right now, so unspeakably tempting—he was not fool enough to look a gift horse in the mouth. Even if the mouth in question was painted in scarlet lipgloss, and the horse more resembled a supernatural creature than anything his members had seen before.

 

“Key,” he said, voice firm and calm.

 

“Yes, Kris?”

 

“Kindly get  _noona_  a glass of water? I think she’s about to faint. If we move this to the living room, I can explain to more people at once.”

 

Key nodded, pushing himself off of the wall and reaching out to take the hyperventilating woman in hand. “A good plan,” he agreed, the oiliness of his earlier amusement seeping away until he sounded more like Key- _hyung_ , the man they all knew and had worked with many a time. Still, while the others followed him, several of them regarded him carefully, a new wariness in their eyes.

 

With the herd moving, Kris turned his attention back to Suho, who was now thankfully unconscious, though still pale and sweating with pain. His arms—his forelegs—seemed to have settled, small mercies.

 

Yixing’s eyes darted between Suho and Kris. “ _Gege_?”

 

“Hmm?”

 

“Is…is it usually like that?” he asked, pointing to the bruising along Suho’s still-human skin, warped over clearly-wolf bone.

 

Kris blinked at him, reading the fear in his voice and face. “What? No, no. I’ve never seen this happen before. Maybe because your teeth didn’t break the skin? Or because you were human at the time? I don’t really know, XingXing, I’m sorry.”

 

Yixing nodded, flinching as another crunching, grating snap announced that Suho’s legs had started to shift, too. “But that’s…that’s not going to be me, right?”

 

“No,” Kris said, shaking his head. “You’ve shifted already, and this didn’t happen, did it?”

 

Yixing shook his head.

 

“Then I doubt it will happen to you,” Kris said, feeling twice his age and suddenly exhausted. “And once Suho- _ge_  gets all the way through to his wolf the first time, I think he’ll be okay. I hope.”

 

“For what it’s worth,” the nurse said, coming back into the small bedroom after having made sure that the manager- _noona_ didn’t actually faint, “I think you’re probably right. I, uh, I don’t know much about wolves, or weres in general, really, but, um. Well. That’s how it works for shape-shifting species like ravens.”

 

Kris’s eyes narrowed as his brain slowly percolated through the clues. “Key- _hyung_?”

 

The young woman winced, but nodded. “Not that you heard it from me.”

 

“Of course not,” Kris said. He stood up carefully, trying his best not to jostle Suho. His efforts, unfortunately, seemed to be in vain; the older man, still unconscious, whined quietly as the mattress shifted.

 

“Don’t worry about him,” Yunmi said, seeing the way Kris had leant back in. She waved a needle at him. “Goddess of injections, here.”

 

“Really?” Yixing asked, cocking his head to the side.

 

Yunmi laughed. “Not in the sense that you’re a wolf, no,” she admitted, “but I am pretty handy with a painkiller, which is what he’s going to get. I’ll keep an eye on him. You two have some explaining to do, I think.”

 

Kris inhaled as deeply as he could and then let all the air out in a rush. Looking to Yixing, he grimaced. “Ready?”

 

“If I have to be.”

 

“Then here we go.”

 

\---

 

“I texted Jinki,” Key muttered out of the corner of his mouth, rising to join Kris and Yixing as they entered the room.

 

“Jinki—?”

 

“Oh, so Yunmi did manage to keep that little fact to herself. Ah, well, cat’s among the pigeons now,” Key said, a look of false regret flickering briefly across his face. “Or, I suppose, incubus among the humans…”

 

Kris choked on air. “He’s a—”

 

Key smirked. “How do you think no one noticed me, hm? I’m guessing your education did cover incubi.”

 

“It did,” Kris said, tone dark. “Yixing, go grab a seat on the floor. We’re going to coordinate our plan of attack. I’ll be right there.”

 

Yixing nodded, already sliding down to the floor, scooching closer to Luhan and Minseok.

 

“Plan of attack?” Key asked quietly.

 

“Well I’m not actually supernatural,” Kris bit out, “so I might need a demonstration. Something like that should be right up your alley,  _trickster_.”

 

“It is, at that,” Key said. “Jinki can keep a lid on tempers when he gets here; he’s pretty good at that. But the rest of it? All your show,  _alpha_.”

 

“I’m not…”

 

“You are,” the slim man cut in. “You are the one who knows what’s going on, you’re that one’s leader, you’ll be leading Suho when he shifts. Human or no, you’re the head of this pack, for now.” His eyes traced Kris’s face, taking in the dark circles under his eyes, his hollow, pale cheeks, his bitten and chapped lips. “Lead them, Kris.” His part said, he patted Kris’s shoulder and slunk down to sit on the floor, next to the chair he’d left open.

 

Ceding authority to Kris, the young man realized, even as he wrapped numb fingers around the seat’s carved wooden back. He forced a tight smile and sat down, leaning forward, his elbows resting on his knees. “So,” he began, looking out at the group.

 

The managers were standing in the far corner, but for the lone woman; she was seated on a beanbag chair, her knees clutched tight to her chest. To her left was Kai, seated cross-legged on the floor. Kyungsoo was next to him, standing, with Chen standing next to him. Chen’s hand rested on the arm of the couch, just behind Sehun’s elbow. Luhan was crushed against the maknae, Minseok and Yixing practically sitting on his feet. Baekhyun sat behind Yixing, leaning into Chanyeol. Chanyeol stood behind the couch, almost fading into the corner, but for the hand he had on top of Tao’s head. That was easy enough for him to achieve, as Tao was seated on the floor, between the couch and the floor, leaning into the cushy arm of the couch.

 

Kris coughed. “So,” he said again. “Um, explanations.”

 

“Would be nice, yes,” Minseok said, nodding sharply. He wore a sharp, pointed look, and his voice was cutting.

 

“To be to the point,” Kris said, trying not to let Minseok’s anger get to him, “werewolves are real. So are vampires and fairies and all kinds of things you heard about as a child.”

 

It was so quiet in the crowded room that they could hear Yunmi murmuring to the still-whimpering Suho through the wall. That didn’t help the intense, uncomfortable atmosphere. A quick look around made it very clear that no one from Exo (barring Yixing, for obvious reasons) believed Kris. The managers’ faces, though…there was horror there.

 

“Werewolves,” Chen said, finally breaking the quiet.

 

Kris nodded. “And while we were in the United States, XingXing got bit. At some point, he infected Suho. The change…” He sighed. “It can hurt, if it doesn’t go just right.”

 

“And we’re just supposed to—”

 

“He’s telling the truth, Hyun-ah,” Key said, tossing his head. He sat up a little straighter. “Isn’t he,  _noona_?”

 

The woman looked up, startled. She swallowed, and then nodded, her face pale. “Yes,” she said. “I’ve…I’ve just never met a werewolf, before.” She swallowed again, her eyes darting to Yixing.

 

Seeing her look, Minseok wrapped an arm around Yixing’s shoulders, and Luhan caged him in with his leg, keeping him close.

 

“But you have met a trickster,” Key said, winking at her. He turned his attention to the wider group, distracting them as Lee Jinki edged in through the door. “Because she’s worked with me for years. And I’m not human. Not at all.”

 

“Nor am I,” Jinki said, closing the door behind him with a tight snap. “As I suspect Yixing-ah might have noticed? At least a little?” Grinning, he let the glamour he wore shimmer and fade.

 

Yixing’s jaw dropped as the geometric patterns on his face were revealed, along with quicksilver eyes. “You…”

 

“I’m an incubus,” Jinki said, letting them all get a good look at his face. Waving a hand, he raised the glamour once more, though slowly, so they could see the changes. The black lines thinned and paled, until only unmarked skin showed, while his eyes stilled and darkened. “I need human energy to feed,” he continued, voice quiet, though it seemed loud in the otherwise silent room. “It’s safer to skim off a crowd. During a concert. When there’s a lot of…interest.”

 

“I do something similar,” Key croaked, now sitting on Kris’s knee. Twisting his neck, he preened a glossy black wingfeather with his beak. “As a trickster, I thrive on excitement and chaos. Do you know how much of that there is in this business?” He laughed.

 

“And XingXing?” Luhan asked.

 

“Basically human,” Kris said, taking the opportunity to draw attention back to himself. Bouncing his knee, he sent Key flapping over to Onew’s shoulder. “Far more than those two, anyway. Werewolves, barring great tragedies, tend to spend the majority of their lives as humans. Some people are born as wolves—they’re more like the  _sunbae_ s. Bitten weres are…they’re human. Just with a little bit more.”

 

Tao shifted, but said nothing. Above him, Chanyeol frowned. “Is the full moon thing true?”

 

Kris nodded, then paused, and grimaced. He see-sawed a hand in midair. “Somewhat? Yes, the full moon does affect werewolves. Yes, it brings the wolf forward more—makes them more prone to emotional outbursts, eases the transitions. In children, it almost always forces a transition between forms. In adults? Not once you’ve got the hang of it. And weres can change between their forms outside of the full moon.”

 

“Does he go full wolf or what?”

 

“I became a wolf,” Yixing murmured, looking down at his lap. “Completely. Except that I was still me. Mostly.”

 

“Yixing got bit by a Tibetan Wolf werewolf,” Kris said, trying to explain. “So he can become entirely a wolf, entirely a human, and something halfway in between. He’s going to need practice, though. Especially when it comes to maintaining his human form. In times of stress, everyone reverts to something that protects them. For weres, that’s often a less human shape than normal.”

 

“What do werewolves even eat?” Chen asked.

 

Kris snorted, feeling the tension in the room easing rapidly. He wasn’t sure how much of it was due to Jinki exerting an incubus’s particular emotional cloud, how much was due to Jinki and Key’s little display making him, the human, seem far more comforting, and how much of it was due to the members just getting with the program. They were good kids, and tended to roll with things fairly well. Hopefully this would be one of those things.

 

“Werewolves eat what everyone else eats,” Kris said. “Though I did know one girl in Canada who was vegetarian. The others tried to get her to hunt rabbits with them, but even under the moon, she refused.”

 

Sehun fidgeted. “Are you one?” he asked.

 

“A vegetarian?”

 

“A w-werewolf.”

 

Kris shook his head. “No. I am not a werewolf, a mage, or anything else supernatural. But my aunt… Well, when I lived in Canada, I lived with a pack of werewolves. The pack was a mix of humans and born wolves and bitten wolves and a few other supernaturals.”

 

“You never said anything,” one of the manager- _hyungs_  interjected.

 

“Wasn’t my place to say anything,” Kris said. “Not about my pack—that’s not my secret to tell. And I wasn’t going to ask where someone didn’t want to tell.”

 

“Good manners,” Key cawed. He shifted his weight from foot to foot, fluffing and settling his feathers. “We live on secrets, our type.”

 

“We live because of secrets,” Jinki said. He looked around the group, focusing intently on the gathered members, less so on the managers. “You’ve just learned one of the biggest secrets in the world. Trust me when I say that you keeping that secret is a life or death situation. There are people—human people—in this world who want us dead. There are non-humans who want other non-humans dead. And there’s a lot of scientific value to a dead supernatural being. Imagine how much there is for one that’s still alive.”

 

Kris shivered, thinking of the people he had met and lived with in Canada, the children who still called him “uncle Kevin,” the girl he had kissed beneath the stairs in high school. But even as their smiling, laughing, human-skinned, wolf-furred, golden-eyed, blue-eyed, red-eyed faces streamed through his mind, he found himself putting Yixing and Suho and Tao in their places. Anger boiled hot and hard in his belly, snakes eating him from the inside out, at the thought of someone getting their hands on any of  _his_  people. He could feel his fingernails biting into his palms, his hands clenching into tight fists.

 

Yixing, on the floor, edged forward until he was pressed against Kris’s leg. “Duizhang,” he said, putting his hand on Kris’s socked foot.

 

“I won’t let them touch you,” Kris said, loosening one hand just enough that he could grip Yixing’s shoulder. “No one’s going to get you, XingXing.”

 

“I know,” Yixing said, leaning into his touch. “So just breathe.”

 

And suddenly Kris understood what Key had meant when he had said that Kris was the alpha.

 

\---

 

“If Yixing bites him again, it may make the rest of the transition easier,” Stiles said, his voice crackling over the speaker of Kris’s phone. “You said he’s not dripping black goo?”

 

“Nope,” Kris said. “No black goo, no black veins. He’s responsive—well, except that he’s drugged right now—and the change has definitely started.”

 

“Then the change is going to take,” Stiles said. “I’ve been reading up on what I can find about Tibetan weres since we met. You should get the first set of .pdfs in, like, twenty minutes? I’m almost done pulling them together. I’m going to keep sending you more information as I get it, though. Unless you’ve found someone there?”

 

Kris shook his head. “No such luck,” he said. “Thanks for the information, though.”

 

“Yeah, no problem,” Stiles told him. “This is what I do. Well, not this, exactly. I don’t spend all day on the phone. Most days. Some days when Lydia—not the point. I’m here to help. As much as I can. When I can.”

 

“Thanks, Stiles.”

 

“Ha, yeah. Night, Yifan. At least I think it’s night. For you. Agh, I’m just going to hang up, okay? Okay.”

 

Kris snorted and slid his phone back into his pocket. Wherever his aunt had found this kid, he was a character, and no mistake. Still, he was nice, and far more helpful than Kris would have been in his shoes. He looked for Yixing as he re-entered the small room Sehun usually shared with Suho.

 

Yixing was sitting uncomfortably on the edge of Sehun’s bed, glancing nervously between the nurse and Chen. Seeing Kris’s raised eyebrow, he shrugged, as if to say that he didn’t know why their other member had joined them, either. “The expert say anything?” he asked.

 

“He thinks if you bite him again, as a wolf, it should help the end of the change go more smoothly,” Kris said. He nodded to Chen. “You sure you want to stay?”

 

Chen nodded. “You guys are family,” he said. “You can’t scare me away.”

 

Kris smiled. “You’re a good man, Kim Jongdae,” he said, gripping Chen’s shoulder tightly. “Thank you.”

 

“Duizhang,” Chen said, nodding to him.

 

\---

 

Yixing slid into his wolf skin, feeling fur burst from his skin in itchy little clumps, hearing more than feeling the grate of bones twisting and shifting and warping and changing until he was on all fours, jaw pulling forwards, sharp teeth bursting from his gums. He sniffed, wrinkling his nose at the stench of pain and fear that nearly smothered the smell of Suho, Sehun, and a hundred sleepless nights, and sneezed.

 

Hopping up onto the bed, he took Suho’s sweaty arm in his mouth and  _bit_.

 

The world exploded into fur.

 


	4. Chapter 3

Last Time:

_Yixing slid into his wolf skin, feeling fur burst from his skin in itchy little clumps, hearing more than feeling the grate of bones twisting and shifting and warping and changing until he was on all fours, jaw pulling forwards, sharp teeth bursting from his gums. He sniffed, wrinkling his nose at the stench of pain and fear that nearly smothered the smell of Suho, Sehun, and a hundred sleepless nights, and sneezed._

 

_Hopping up onto the bed, he took Suho’s sweaty arm in his mouth and bit._

 

_The world exploded into fur._

 

**Chapter Three:**

 

Chen ended up being something of an object lesson, which he took with the same steady calm he took everything. Even coming out of a tangle of wolf and human bodies to find his shirt torn and his shoulder weeping blood and already hot to the touch had not shaken him overmuch.

 

Or perhaps the breakdown was still to come, Kris reflected, seeing the pale tone of Chen’s cheeks. Snagging the newest member of their little pack by the back of the neck, he steered him into the beanbag chair that the manager- _noona_  had occupied earlier. He grabbed a blanket that had fallen to the floor earlier and threw it around Chen’s shoulders, to keep him warm until he got back. “Stay,” he said. “I’ll be right back. Then we’ll get you into bed.”

 

Chen nodded, already starting to drift.

 

It didn’t take long for Kris to gather the scattered members; after the earlier reveal, they’d all drifted to different parts of the two apartments, taking in what they had learnt in their own ways. The managers had returned to the office to begin dealing with the fallout, and Jinki and Key had disappeared upstairs, back to the apartment SHINee kept in the SM-owned building. After collecting those still in K’s apartment, Kris went across the hall and found the others.

 

When everyone was somewhat settled, Kris let himself collapse beside Chen.

 

“Is Junmyeon-hyung okay?” Sehun asked. He’d been curled up in front of the television in M’s dorm with Luhan, the pair talking in hushed whispers, not paying a lick of attention to the cooking show playing.

 

“Junmyeon is fine,” Kris said. “We found a way to make his transition easier. He’s sleeping, now. Yixing is with him.” He paused, trying to find a way to say what needed to be said.

 

“Why do you need us, then?” Tao asked, raising an eyebrow. He was wearing a tank top and a pair of yoga pants, and he was carrying his staff. Kris had caught him in the hall, already heading for the in-building gym.

 

“Because I got bit,” Chen said quietly, peeking up from beneath the blanket. He looked to Kris, and then sat upright. “I don’t know who it was, but…”

 

As the blanket fell away, someone gasped. Chen couldn’t really blame whoever it was; he hadn’t gotten a good look at the bloody wound before Kris had been applying pressure and tissues, but even he knew that it was heart-stoppingly ugly. Neither Suho nor Yixing’s teeth were really meant for much outside of rending and tearing.

 

“That’s a werewolf bite,” Kris said, somewhat unnecessarily. “ChenChen’s already starting to run a fever. Sometime in the next twelve hours, he will start the Change. Any questions?”

 

He sounded exhausted, Chen thought. Like he was about to keel over and start snoring, right then and there. And little wonder; Kris had been running full tilt on this since last night, and Chen doubted he had had much of a chance to stop for breath, or that he would have taken one, if it existed.

 

“Awesome,” Kris sighed, when no one yelled out. “Sehun, do you mind sleeping over with Tao tonight? Actually, no. Sehun, if you want to room with Luhan, that would be wonderful. Yixing will stay in your room with Junmyeon, and I’ll take over ChenChen and MinMin’s room. Minseok—”

 

“I’m in with Tao, got it, duizhang,” the older man said, nodding sharply. He looked around at the rest of the group. “You go get Jong-ah settled. I’ll watch over the rest of the mess.”

 

“Thank you,” Kris said, the words escaping him in a dragging sigh. He shoved himself to his feet, then helped Chen get to his. Re-wrapping his member in the blanket, he hustled him out of the room, out of K’s apartment, and away.

 

Minseok waited until they could no longer hear footsteps in the hall, and then turned a laser-eyed glare on the seven other men sitting around him. “No one does anything stupid for at least twenty-four hours, got it?” he hissed. “He’s worn to the bone. Baekhyunnie?”

 

“Yeah,  _hyung_?”

 

“You’re going to be the adult in this dorm, alright? Leader-nim, at least until Junmyeonnie’s feeling better. The rest of you, listen to him, alright? Think of it as having two sick members in the dorm. If there’s any problems, call me first, okay? I’ll deal with it.”

 

“And if you can’t?” Sehun asked.

 

“Then I will,” Luhan said, serene as ever, but an edge of steel in his voice. “And if I can’t, and the managers can’t, and the rest of us can’t…”

 

Minseok nodded. “Only then will we bother  _duizhang_.”

 

\---

 

Tao peeked around the edge of the door. “ _Gege_?”

 

“Hey, TaoTao,” Minseok said, smiling up at the younger man from where he was lying on his bed. “What can I do for you? Oh, back rub?”

 

Hesitant, Tao nodded. “If…if it’s not a problem.”

 

Minseok laughed and sat up. “No problem, no problem at all. Do you have your stuff for bed?”

 

“Yeah—Yi- _ge_ left it outside the room." Tao stepped into the room, revealing that he was holding a pillow, a blanket, and had his travel carry-on tossed over his shoulder.

 

“Go ahead and throw those down,” Minseok said, pointing to Chen’s bed. He’d already taken his roommate’s stuff over to the room Kris was keeping him in, so it was easy enough for Tao to put his things on the bed so that he could use it for the night. As the younger man worked to get his blanket evenly distributed, Minseok rose to his feet and started pawing through his drawers. He kept unscented lotions in his drawers for his members; though it was an unofficial title, everyone knew that he was EXO’s masseuse. And he was good at it.

 

Tao rolled out the throw blanket that Minseok kept for this purpose, laying down on it, chin propped on his own pillow. He’d already shed his shirt.

 

“Nice bruise,” Minseok said, kneeling down beside him. “What hit you?”

 

Reaching back, Tao found the sore spot the older man had noticed. “I walked back into the door,” he said, laughing ruefully. “Wasn’t paying attention to where I was going.”

 

Minseok whistled. “I’ll be careful, then,” he said. Squeezing some lotion into his palm, he started warming them up between his hands. When it wouldn’t chill Tao, he put his hands on Tao’s shoulders and began to work the cream in.

 

For quite some time, neither man spoke. Minseok knelt beside his friend, working out the knots in his shoulders and arms with strong fingers and hard presses of the heels of his palms. Tao let him move him here and there, his eyes starting to slide closed. Every once in a while, he’d stiffen up and a tiny, involuntary sound would escape him. Minseok focused his attention on those knots, knowing that he needed to loosen up Tao’s shoulders before moving on to the real problem area—his lower back.

 

“Tao-ya,” he said, leaning in to work out an uncomfortably tight muscle. “Have you spoken to duizhang?”

 

“No,” Tao mumbled, face buried in his pillow. “I don’t think he wants to.”

 

“To talk to you?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

Minseok thought, fingers working. “You’re upset by that, I know. No, don’t tense up. Just listen to me, yeah? I don’t think it’s that he doesn’t want to talk to you, Tao. I think…I think he’s not really sure how to talk to you, you know? You’re his friend, but right now, everything’s going to hell, all at once. And you know him. He thinks he has to be all tough-guy leader-man. Can’t rely on us. Has to carry all that weight himself.”

 

Tao snorted. “He was avoiding me like I had the plague or something in the airport this morning.”

 

“Yeah,” Minseok admitted, lips tightening. “I noticed.”

 

“I noticed you noticing. You’re not subtle,  _gege_.”

 

Minseok pinched him, gently. “Brat.” He shifted, starting to work on the middle of Tao’s back. “Possibly true, though. But I think Yifannie had a reason for that, too. This morning—none of us knew. Not about Xing-ah, not about this whole werewolf thing, right?”

 

“Right,” Tao grunted.

 

“So maybe he was talking to someone and he couldn’t risk you hearing? TaoTao, you are the only other one of us that speaks Cantonese. I don’t think it was you, at least in the sense of you being you, that he wanted to avoid. You know how he said that it wasn’t his secret to tell, earlier? Maybe he just didn’t want you to hear about Xing-ah’s secret.”

 

“Maybe.”

 

Minseok’s lips twitched. “I’m still planning on tearing him a new one, Tao-ya, don’t you worry. Honestly. That man.” He shook his head. “What, does he think we’re just here for him to ride herd on? Does he think we can’t help him out? Ugh. Save me from heroic idiots.”

 

Tao snorted. “Going to have to learn him to lean on us, huh?”

 

“Going to have to learn him, indeed,” Minseok said grimly. “Now. Relax!”

 

\---

 

Suho stretched slowly, examining his forelegs carefully. His feet were white, and most of the fur on his legs were a creamy off-white. The inner fur on his hind legs was also white, and it was a bright tan color on the outside. His tail was tipped with black, and the rest of what he could see of its fluffy length was a speckled mix of grey and brown.

 

Yixing waited for him on his bed, curled up for rest but his head held high. If he looked anything like Yixing did, Suho knew that he had an off-white muzzle and thick tan ruff, while his facial features were rimmed in a dark grey. His back was a darker brown, with hints of grey mixed in.

 

Yixing’s tail thumped on the mattress. He gave Suho an expectant look.

 

Suho huffed, and then bounced up to his feet. He trotted forward a few steps, then leapt onto his own mattress, careful not to land on the other man—wolf. With his nose, he nudged and pushed until Yixing shifted. Then, and only then, did Suho turn once, twice, and settle down.

 

\---

 

Chanyeol leaned back against Baekhyun, listening to Kyungsoo rummaging through the fridge. The other man was absentmindedly sweeping fingers through his hair, petting him like a cat while they watched a movie. They had all agreed that a quiet night was just what the doctor ordered, and had quickly stripped cushions off the couch to curl on the floor.

 

Kai had already fallen asleep, a messy sprawl of limbs and his favourite blanket draped across furniture, floor, and friends. Baekhyun was planning to wake him up in a bit, whenever Kyungsoo’s rummaging had born fruit, but until then… Well, there was no harm in letting him sleep, was there? He certainly couldn’t see one.

 

“Can you believe this is our lives?” Chanyeol asked.

 

Baekhyun snorted. “I can believe that something insane is our lives, yes. Can I believe the werewolf thing? That’s a bit harder.”

 

Chanyeol laughed quietly. “Basically, yeah. You think Xing-ah knew about the  _sunbae-nim_?”

 

“Key- _hyung_  and Jinki- _hyung_? No way. He was just filling in. You heard them. I don’t think they would have told him,” Baekhyun said.  He shook his head. “No. I think he was as blindsided by this as the rest of us.”

 

“Well, except for a certain  _duizhang…_ ” Chanyeol said, arching an eyebrow. “What else do you think he’s keeping to himself?”

 

“Would you have believed him if he’d started talking about werewolves?” Baekhyun asked, tugging gently on his hair. “You wouldn’t have, don’t lie. You’d have tried to get him committed to the mental ward.”

 

“Pssht, like you would have reacted any better.”

 

“I’m still not one-hundred percent sure he’s not a little crazy,” Baekhyun admitted. “I mean. Well, we saw Key- _hyung_  and Jinki- _hyung_ , but…werewolves?”

 

“Fucking nuts,” Chanyeol said.

 

“Yes, you are,” Kyungsoo agreed, coming into the room with a tray full of assorted dishes. “Looks like  _noona_  refilled the fridge for us. What are we talking about?”

 

“Your face,” Kai grumbled, twisting slowly as he woke up. “Food?”

 

“Food, Jong-bear,” Kyungsoo said, holding out a bite of rice. He waited until Kai sat up, and then fed it to him.

 

Kai ruffled his hands through his hair while he chewed, eyes still droopy and half-closed. Swallowing, he accepted the chopsticks Chanyeol held out to him and joined the others in rifling through the plastic containers of food.

 

“Someone should go offer food to Junmyeon- _hyung_ and Yixing,” Chanyeol said, a piece of fruit half-way to his mouth.

 

Kyungsoo shook his head. “Xing-ah came into the kitchen while I was in there,” he said. “He grabbed some sausage and left.”

 

“Did he look—human?”

 

“Sort of. I mean, he was standing upright, and he had, like, hands and shit. But his teeth were extra pointy,” he said, holding fingers up beside his own canines, “and he had, like, wicked side burns. And a pointy nose.”

 

“Ha!” Baekhyun laughed. “Pointy nose.”

 

“Did you see Junmyeon- _hyung_?” Kai asked.

 

Kyungsoo shook his head. “I think Yixing is keeping him away from us? Just for a little bit. Until he’s used to it. Like Kris- _hyung_ and Jongdae-ya.”

 

“Speaking of those two—anyone see the look on Tao-ya’s face?”

 

“Forget Tao-ya,” Chanyeol said, shaking his head. “Did you see Minseok’s face?”

 

“I thought he was going to leap up and claw out eyeballs,” Baekhyun agreed, snickering. “He’s a tad protective of his baby, isn’t he?”

 

Kai rolled his eyes. “They’re  _all_  protective of Tao,” he said. “Him and Luhan. Which I guess I can understand. Lu- _hyung_  looks like a baby. Tao just actually is one.”

 

“He’s older than Sehun,” Kyungsoo pointed out.

 

“Nicer to his  _hyungs_ , though,” Chanyeol said. “Makes them a hell of a lot more protective. And Min-ah’s a mama bear, anyway.”

 

Baekhyun laughed. “He is, he really is. So. How long do you think it will take before he kills someone in there?”

 

They all laughed.

 

\---

 

Even after Chen completed his Change, Kris insisted on the three new werewolves spending more time with each other than with the other members. While the other nine ran around trying to get things pulled together—supernatural emergency or no, SM had plans for EXO, and they would get them done—Chen, Suho, and Yixing focused on getting control of their new realities. Not just in the mental sense, though there was rather a lot for them to wrap their minds around. More important, or at least more stressed by Kris, was getting control of their shifts.

 

“Until the wolf is listening to you,” Kris explained, “every emotional upset is going to send you right back into your fur. And that can’t happen.”

 

He forwarded the information from Stiles to Suho, putting him in charge of getting all three of them up to snuff. In the meantime, Kris, as M’s leader, was having to serve as the leader of EXO over all. He left early in the morning and returned late at night, more often than not just falling face-first into his bed.

 

Not that anyone else was having a much better time of things. Suho was nearly at his wits end—as easily as Yixing slid back and forth between human and wolf, he was having a difficult time locking down on that place somewhere in between. And Chen could find the in between perfectly. He just couldn’t—or maybe wouldn’t—let go completely and drop into the fully wolfed out form. He also struggled getting back into his human shape. And Suho? He struggled with changing on purpose. Sure, in his sleep, or due to emotions, he’d slip and slide through a variety of wolf-human combinations, but doing it intentionally? That was a whole other ballgame.

 

Not being wolf-bit didn’t really seem to be helping anyone, either. Tao had practically disappeared into the bowels of SM’s well-appointed gym, and the wushu specialist he trained with had been in more frequently than usual. Luhan and Sehun had had a knock-down, drag-out screaming match in the hallway late one evening; Jessica and Key had had to drag them apart. Now the pair were avoiding each other like their lives depended on it. Chanyeol had locked himself into a practice room with Kai, and if they weren’t dancing, they were discussing dance, or sleeping on the benches—or beneath them. Kyungsoo and Baekhyun drifted between dancing and singing and working on god only knew what. Minseok certainly didn’t, and he was the one that the managers sought out when they wanted to find someone else.

 

That, more than anything, was what had Minseok swearing under his breath as he worked his way up the stairs. While he could have taken the elevator, he was frustrated enough at the moment to know that he needed to give himself a buffer of time before meeting with his leader. It wasn’t that he didn’t love, respect, and generally think well of Kris. It was just that at the moment, Kris was testing every inch of his good will and generally making an ass of himself where Tao was concerned, to say nothing of making Minseok’s life more difficult by not answering his phone. Hence, the stairs. Because being out of breath would probably keep him from cussing Kris out and punching him in the face first thing.

 

Probably.

 

The door to M’s apartment was locked, so Minseok let himself in. He noted that the shoes Kris had been wearing earlier, a ratty pair of tennis shoes that he really, really hoped none of the  _sasaengs_  had seen, were tucked in the shoe rack, out of the way. Kris’s bag was also hanging from one of the low hooks.

 

“So you are home,” Minseok muttered to himself. “Fucker, you better have a damn good reason for not picking up your goddamn phone or I am going to end your stupid ass.” Toeing out of his own shoes, he slid into a pair of house shoes—Luhan’s—and headed down the hall.

 

Not being sure of where his leader might be, Minseok stuck his head in each of the rooms he passed. The kitchen was empty, as was the living room. There was no one in his and Chen’s room, and even though Tao had left a messy tangle of blankets on the floor in Luhan and Yixing’s, there was no one there. Nor was Kris in the room he usually shared with Tao, which they’d all been avoiding. The manager’s office—also Kris’s office, the manager’s room, and storage—also stood empty. Kris was not in the small nook that held their washing machine and their dryer.

 

The door to the bathroom was open, and the light was on.

 

Trusting that Kris would have closed the door all the way if he had needed privacy, Minseok pushed it open, already primed to give the other man a tonguelashing he would not soon forget.

 

“Oh,  _shibal_ ,” he swore, taking in the scene.

 

Kris was in the bathroom, sure enough. At least, his body was. God knew where his mind was, because he was slumped against the toilet, head resting on the seat, completely out of it. His face was pale, but for bright fever spots high on his cheeks, and dark rings beneath his eyes. His mouth was open, and every breath made a horrible wheeze. He had sick on his face, in his hair, on his hands and knees.

 

Cringing, Minseok wrapped one hand in a nearby towel and reached for Kris. With the other, he pulled his phone out of his pocket. Thanking every higher power he could think of for speed dial, he set about calling a manager while lifting Kris out of his own sick.

 

“Minseok-ah? Did you find him?”

 

“Yeah, about that,  _hyung_. I think we’re going to need a doctor…”


	5. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING! This chapter features blood and some violence.

Last time:

_Cringing, Minseok wrapped one hand in a nearby towel and reached for Kris. With the other, he pulled his phone out of his pocket. Thanking every higher power he could think of for speed dial, he set about calling a manager while lifting Kris out of his own sick._

_“Minseok-ah? Did you find him?”_

_“Yeah, about that, hyung. I think we’re going to need a doctor…”_

 

**Chapter Four**

 

 

“Alright,” Chanyeol said, rereading the text on his phone. “We are all under strict instruction to head back to K’s dorm.  _Noona_  will be bringing Tao and Luhan some blankets and pillows, but as of right now, no one but Minseok’s allowed in M dorm.”

 

“And Kris?” asked Kai.

 

“Is the reason we’re not allowed in,” Chanyeol said. “Apparently  _duizhang_  is sick. Vomit virus.”

 

“Yeah, okay, not risking catching that,” Baekhyun said. He shuddered dramatically. “Camp out?”

 

“No,” Luhan interrupted. “Not for all of us, anyway. Taozi needs to be in a real bed—don’t argue,  _baobei_. You’ve been spending too much time in the gym. You need to take care of your back.”

 

“He’s right about that,” Baekhyun said, squeezing Tao’s shoulder. “Kyung-ah should sleep in a real bed, too. You know how he gets about insomnia.” He and Chanyeol exchanged dark looks.

 

Kyungsoo frowned. “Then Chanyeol- _hyung_  should be in a real bed, too. He’s been working extra hard on dancing.”

 

“Can’t have you locking up!” Kai agreed, nodding sharply. “Chanyeol, you and Tao take your and Baekhyun’s room. Kyungsoo has his bed, and Sehun can have mine. Luhan and I will sleep on the floor in the living room.”

 

Chanyeol’s phone beeped again, and he looked down. “Sounds good, I guess,” he said. “Plus we’re getting tomorrow off—management wants us to all get looked over by someone with a medical degree.”

 

“Joy,” Kai deadpanned, flopping back against the floor. “Can we go? Only, with ten of us in one apartment, it’s going to take hours for us all to shower tonight.”

 

He’d barely finished the thought before Tao was on his feet and racing for the door.

 

\---

 

Kyungsoo woke with a start, hearing loud voices through the wall. Groaning, he pulled his pillow over his face. Seriously? He understood that whatever they were dealing with was difficult, and he didn’t envy them in the slightest, and yeah, he’d probably have been whining like a baby in their shoes. But the late night arguments were really starting to get out of hand. Especially when you took into consideration the fact that there were ten of them all crammed into the one apartment tonight, and no one could escape to another dorm for the quiet.

 

On the other bed, he could hear Sehun snuffling, starting to wake up. Well, that just wouldn’t do. The maknae had been under way too much stress lately—see exhibit A, hair-pulling catfight with his best friend, exhibit B, in public—and even the managers would admit that he was being worn to the bone. Hard as they had all worked to get Sehun calmed down and asleep tonight—and since when had that had to be a team effort?—Kyungsoo refused to let Suho, Chen, or Yixing’s tempers ruin it.

 

Rolling over, he threw his pillow to the end of the bed and sat up. Kyungsoo didn’t bother with slippers, just winced as his bare feet hit the wooden floors. Warm as the rest of the building was, these floors were frigid. Still, he steeled himself and left the room, being extra careful not to make a sound with the door.

 

In the hallway, the argument was far clearer. Yelling, growling, snarling—what were they thinking? His own temper starting to rise, Kyungsoo knocked on the closed door.

 

There was no response.

 

 

After a moment, Kyungsoo tossed caution to the wind and pounded on it, closed fist, full force. He waited a half-second and, hearing no response, threw open the door. “You idiots,” he started, words hissing out between clenched teeth.

 

He was cut off by an obscene howl. The caged wolves thundered forward on all fours, a mess of fur and fangs and claws.

 

Kyungsoo’s eyes widened, his heart racing. He tried to step backwards as a large, tan body flew at him, but stumbled. He was falling, he was falling, the wolf—one of his _friends_ —was falling on top of him, fangs bared, claws sharp…and then pure fire was cutting through him.

 

\---

 

It hurt.

 

Oh, god, it hurt. He was burning. Sharp threads of fire were tearing through him, cutting him in half. He had a belly of flames and agony. He clapped a hand to the screaming hole of his gut and felt slick bloody and the rough edges of a clawed-open wound. Kyungsoo instinctively grabbed tighter, trying to hold himself together, and that was when one of his fingers slid in to the open gash. Oh!

 

He screamed.

 

\---

 

Kai, woken by the arguing, knew he couldn’t ignore it any longer when Kyungsoo’s scream tore through the dorm. Leaping to his feet, he raced down the hall, yelling for everyone else to stay where they were, _Luhan, lock yourself in the bathroom._

 

He was treated to the sight of Kyungsoo falling back against the floor, one hand clutched against the bloody mess of his belly. Kai had a moment to realize that the darker color he was seeing was his friend’s internal organs before he, too, was falling to the floor, hands landing in a spreading puddle of red, knees thunking on the hard wood, gorge rising in his throat.

 

Fur thundered past him on clawed paws, and he flinched away, not wanting to see blood-stained muzzles and white teeth and know, _know,_ that one of these wolves, one of his friends, one of his _brothers_ , had just killed his best friend. Kai spared a moment to be grateful he’d told Luhan to lock himself up in the bathroom; how much more damage could they do tonight? Catching Kyungsoo’s free hand, trying to ignore the sticky-slick of blood between their palms, he forced himself to smile at his friend. He didn’t say anything, knew that if he opened his mouth the nauseated horror would all come vomiting forth, but he couldn’t leave Kyungsoo alone. Not to die. Not like this.

 

He didn’t see the approaching wolf, didn’t hear the low growls over the sound of his heart racing in his chest and his breath screaming from his lungs. He felt the bite, though. Sharp teeth sank into his hip, sank in and held, crunching into oh, god, what could only be _bone,_ and then something—someone—was shaking him. Kai creeled, and the sharp sound leaving him was so high and so loud, he didn’t even hear the door opening.

 

\---

 

“Jesus,” Kang Daesung breathed, looking around the gory mess. “Jinki-ya, do you need me to get  _hyung_  in here?”

 

“I might,” Jinki said, grimacing with the effort of controlling ten minds, three of which were not entirely human, two of which were in agony. He was grateful that he’d had the  _gumiho_  over for the night. Not just because it meant he was well-fed and his powers at their strongest, but also because Daesung’s abilities included a little emotional manipulation, himself, and he knew others who did it to live.

 

“Let go of the normals,” Key said, stepping over the spreading pool of blood, back from investigating what was going on. “I’ve convinced them to stay where they are. Except for Luhan—Daesung, I’m going to need you to…” He made a face. “Charm him, I think.”

 

Daesung’s bright smile stretched inhumanly wide across his face. “How aware do you want him?”

 

“You can fuck him on a forest floor for all I care,  _hyung_ ,” Key said, “but I really think it’s in his best interest not to see the crime scene going in here, and god knows we’re going to need the bathroom.”

 

Nodding, Daesung slid past him, that peculiar slink to his spine saying he was pulling all of the  _gumiho_  to the surface. If he was pulling in that much power, he was probably planning to give the trembling man locked in the bathroom the full benefits of  _gumiho_  charm, meaning that Luhan would be stoned out of this planet and glamoured within an inch of his life. But that was no longer their problem.

 

“And what about the crime scene?” Jinki gritted out. He was starting to sweat.

 

“Have you got the wolves back in control of their minds?” Key asked.

 

“No! You can either have them riled with the moon and bloodlust, or you can have them crippled with guilt, or you can have me running their minds. Pick one, Key!”

 

“Get them logical, but restrain the guilt, if you can,” Key said, thinking quickly. “Let go of the injured ones—I’m going to do a little tricking.”

 

He darted away, kneeling beside Kai, above Kyungsoo. As Jinki’s pheromone-and-psychic whammy lifted from them, he watched their eyes widening as they came back into their own realities. Before the pain and fear could register, though, Key took over. Snapping his fingers, he let all the chaos in the night charge him up, and he focused that power back on the two young men in front of him. The charm locked down, hard.

 

Kai fell to his rear, muscles suddenly loose. “ _Hyung_?” he whispered.

 

Key grinned at him, dizzy and sweat-soaked from the momentary action. “Cut your nerves,” he explained. “Hurt?”

 

Kai shook his head. “You were the one—?”

 

“Jinki-ya was,” Daesung replied, stepping back through the hall, Luhan cradled against his broad shoulder. “Incubi can hold minds, sort of. He’s got the others.”

 

“Am I going to change?”

 

“Yes,” Daesung said, blunt as a brick. “And so will Kyungsoo.”

 

“If he lives,” Key muttered.

 

Daesung kicked him. “He’ll live,” he said. He nodded to where Kai sat on the floor, then to where Jinki had calmed the other three. Suho was still in his full wolf form, as was Chen. Yixing was human, and looking ill.

 

“How?” Kai asked.

 

“One of them is going to bite him,” Key said, realizing what Daesung was aiming for.

 

“And they’re all going to clean the wound,” Daesung said, nodding. “The extra saliva, plus the life-threatening wound—the change will take, and fast.” He shifted how he was holding Luhan. “I’m going to go put this one to bed, and then I’ll be back. On four paws.”

 

“Is he—?”

 

“ _Gumiho_ ,” Key explained, half-watching Daesung explain the plan to Jinki. He looked away when the two men kissed. “And a hell of a lot older than any of the rest of us. Your packmates will listen to him.”

 

“I listen to him,” Jinki said, laughing humorlessly as he approached. Chen and Suho slunk at his heels. “Kai-ya, do you think you can stand?”

 

“He can stand,” Key said. He squeezed Kai’s hand, then passed it off to Jinki.

 

Jinki winked at Kai, then hoisted him to his feet. He let the younger man sag against him, and held him close as the wolves edged closer.

 

Kai closed his eyes when Chen’s fanged mouth opened. He had seen enough already tonight. He really didn’t want to see this, too.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For background as to why Daesung and Jinki are in the same building (hurrhurrhurr) go ahead and check out [The Taste of Your Lips (I'm On a Ride)](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1224565).


	6. Chapter 5

Last Time:

_Jinki winked at Kai, then hoisted him to his feet. He let the younger man sag against him, and held him close as the wolves edged closer._

_Kai closed his eyes when Chen’s fanged mouth opened. He had seen enough tonight. He really didn’t want to see this, too._

**Chapter Five**

 

As the other supernatural beings had predicted, Kyungsoo changed almost as soon as Suho and Yixing finished washing the wound in long, rough tongue-strokes. Fur crept across his body in fluffy tufts, and then his body warped and reformed—and a sad, hurting wolf lay on the floor beside Key and a fox-shaped Daesung.

 

With a sigh of relief, Jinki released the last of his control over the wolves. Immediately, they swamped Kyungsoo, whining and whimpering and grooming him. Daesung crept back, until his lithe body was pressed against Jinki’s leg. He yipped until the incubus picked him up, drawing off a little of Daesung’s happy energy through the contact.

 

“Where’d you leave Luhan?” Key asked, suddenly exhausted. “Can we leave Kai there?”

 

Had Daesung been capable of speech, he likely would have been snarking at Key. As it was, he just did the fox equivalent of arching an eyebrow. All nine of his tails curling messily around Jinki’s bare arm, he pointed his nose at the mess of blood and fur on the floor.

 

“Ah,” Key said, understanding. “Can’t have that happening again, can we? So where should Kai rest? He should change soon.”

 

“Put him in the manager’s office,” Jinki said. “Their apartment is like ours—they should have one. These four go back to their own room,” he gave the wolves a dark look, “and we’ll stay here. Just until Kris can handle them.”

 

Key snorted. “If he can. Well,  _hyung_ ,” he addressed Daesung, “you’d either human up and tell me where you put Luhan, or you’re going to have to lead me to him. I’ve been glamoured by you before. I’m not leaving him alone with that hangover.”

 

Daesung barked a laugh and leapt from Jinki’s arms, heading down the hall.

 

“I’ll settle Kai,” Jinki said, “and get a start on that mess.”

 

\---

 

Cold noses pressed against Kyungsoo’s neck and shoulders. He woke slowly, comfortably sleepy, cradled between warm, soft bodies. Tails were tucked around him, heads nuzzled against him, and paws were buried beneath him.

 

Kai—how did he know it was Kai—whined low in his throat. Kai-wolf leaned forward and began licking at Kyungsoo’s muzzle. He groomed him carefully, tongue working over the fur of his face. It was the same gentle touch that usually passed between friends, warm and soft and kind and caring.

 

Kyungsoo huffed and shuffled a little closer to the other wolf. He was glad that Kai had finished his Change, too. It was nicer when they were all together like this. Easier to forget how he had gotten here in the first place.

 

Perhaps smelling the memory on him, Suho made an unhappy sound. His tail whipped back and forth, whacking against the leg of the bed. He crept forward, just a little bit, and washed Kyungsoo’s ear.

 

Kyungsoo yipped back, wagging his tail the way a dog might. He didn’t bear Suho or Chen or Yixing any ill-will. Yes, it had hurt, when it had happened, and he knew that he would likely be having nightmares for months to come. But Kyungsoo had always lived with the idea that what had happened had happened, and there was no point in wishing for things to have gone differently. He had been changed, and while the circumstances had been rotten-bad, he had a pack, and they were taking the best care of him that they could.

 

They had absorbed his pain while waiting for the change to take, and even after he had shifted, they’d kept it up. He had had to push them away so that they would stop drawing the pain after the wounds had healed; there had been no hurt for them to take, but they had been determined to do so, anyway.

 

Suho had coddled Kyungsoo in this new shape while Yixing had explained that they needed to see Kai, that they could help him. In the end, Kai had curled against Suho like a child against a stuffed toy, and the rest of the pack had buried him beneath their furry bulk, taking the last of the pain of the Change. At some point, they’d all fallen asleep, and Kai had woken in his own fur.

 

There was one more night of the moon’s influence to weather—and oh, but they were still regretting having not been paying attention the first night!—but they had worked out their plans. For the night, they would remain locked in the small room, a pile of puppies cementing their bond.

 

Come morning, they would have their freedom.

 

\---

 

Suho wrinkled his nose as he entered Kris’s room. It stank of illness and unwashed man, little bitter snips of fear and anger making his nose itch. He sneezed, trying to get the stench out of his too-sensitive nose.

 

Minseok, slumped across Kris’s legs, groaned and twitched at the sound. He didn’t really wake up, though.

 

Suho put his front paws up on the edge of the bed and got a good sniff of Kris. Ugh, the other man needed a shower, and  _how_ , but the stink of sick seemed less on his body than in the room. Somehow, he knew that that meant that Kris was getting better, that he would soon be well. Turning his head, he sniffed at Minseok. Ah. This one, he needed sleep. Real sleep. Not in a chair, not with his head propped on Kris’s feet. In a bed. With sheets. And a pillow. And a blanket.

 

Unthinking, Suho took Minseok’s thin wrist in his mouth and pulled.

 

\---

 

Kris groaned. His head was pounding, yes, but not nearly as badly as it had been. No, what was really getting him right now was that he’d been sick for three days and somehow three of his friends had gotten bitten and Changed. Jinki and Key had updated him on the situation, Key laughing fit to make himself sick the entire time. They hadn’t given him too much detail, but he knew that there had been blood. Lots of it.

 

On the other hand, the mess and the pain had served one better purpose—the pack seemed to have coalesced, finally. And as they had connected with one another, they had also gotten in better touch with their own wolves. Though Suho had accidentally changed Minseok—honestly, spending so long in his wolf-form that he had completely forgotten—the chances of a tragedy like the one that had happened to Kyungsoo and Kai happening was greatly reduced.

 

Now to get the rest of the members used to the wolves. Going off of the information Stiles had sent, Kris had moved the furniture out of M’s living room. Baekhyun and Kai had gone shopping, ostensibly for Monggu and Jjanggu. The results—a haul of toys for big, tough dogs—had been scattered across the floor. There were large bundles of blankets, too.

 

“Play time,” Luhan said, looking around the room. He settled carefully on the floor beside his leader, offering Kris silent comfort. “So…we get used to thinking of the wolves as really big dogs?”

 

Kris shrugged. “Really big dogs who also happen to be our friends,” he said.

 

“Someday,” Chen said, coming into the room, “we need to go outside. To nature.” He cast his gaze over the toys, blankets, and other members who had already arrived. “Go for a run.”

 

“We’d have to be on leashes,” Minseok warned. “There are leash laws, remember?”

 

Chanyeol snorted. “At least you can pass for a normal doggy, Min-ah.”

 

Minseok growled playfully at him, letting a little fur fluff up around his face. His fangs slid down, and there was a wobble in his voice as his vocal folds changed, too, so that he was growling like a wolf.

 

Chanyeol just laughed, reaching up to ruffle Minseok’s hair. “They had squeaky toys at the shop,” he said. “Go full wolf and I’ll show you what Baekhyun found.”

 

“Oh lord,” Luhan groaned, burying his face in his hands.

 

Tao, just entering the room, raised an eyebrow. “ _Gege_?”

 

“The toy,” Luhan said. “I know what it is. Baekhyun has a shitty sense of humor.”

 

Minseok grinned, the expression twice as dangerous when he was half-shifted as it normally seemed. “This, I cannot miss.” He removed his shirt, balling it up and tossing it into a corner as he stepped out of his pants. In seconds, he was landing on his paws, fully-furred, tongue hanging out of his mouth.

 

“You really do look like a dog like that,” Chen said, cocking his head to the side. “Do the tail—yeah. There you go.”

 

“Good doggy,” Tao said, kneeling down and letting Minseok sniff his hand. Grinning, he started petting his friend. “Chan- _ge_ , where’s Baekhyun with that toy?”

 

“Right here!” Baekhyun sung out, coming into the room with Suho on his heels. “So you did talk him into it. Good going, Channie.” Digging into his bag, he pulled out a rubber toy the size of his fist and tossed it to Minseok.

 

If wolves could laugh, Chen and Minseok would have been howling with it. As it was, both were making a strange chuffing-cough sound, and Minseok was batting the toy around with his paws.

 

The toy in question wasn’t all that large. It was a pasty off-white, like the cheap oatmeal the company had made them all eat during training when they were trying to lose weight. It was vaguely conical, with grooves marking out where it drew together in a gather at the top. It had little eyes and a comical mustache.

 

“It’s a baozi,” Luhan said, completely deadpan. “You found a squeaky baozi.”

 

“Yeah!” Kai laughed, stripping down so he, too, could wolf. “We couldn’t resist.”

 

“Saw it in line,” Baekhyun said, taking up the story as Kai’s mouth went far too wolf to speak. “Like hell we were passing up that opportunity. It was either that or a deer.”

 

Luhan treated him to the evil eye. “Thank you,” he said in a voice that fair dripped with pleasant venom, “for not encouraging him to  _eat me_.”

 

Minseok looked up from his toy and whined. Lying flat on the ground, his ears tucked back against his skull and his tail curling under, he gave Luhan the biggest, saddest puppy eyes any of them had ever seen.

 

“I think—” Kris paused, needing to cough, “I think he’s trying to say he wouldn’t eat you.”

 

Minseok yipped, but quietly, as if afraid anything louder would be too aggressive.

 

Luhan frowned for a long moment, and then rolled his eyes. “Oh, come on, then, you big goof,” he said, scooting forward on the hardwood flooring. “Come here and get scritchies.”

 

As the two friends bonded again, Luhan’s hands unerringly finding the good spots hidden deep in Minseok’s thick fur, Kris turned his attention to the rest of the group. Suho was watching over the other wolves as they played carefully with the toys, obviously doing their damnedest to seem like very large dogs, and nothing more. As they relaxed, though, so, too, did the other members. Sehun had already stretched out one of the blankets, a pillow tucked under his head. Kai had his head pillowed on Sehun’s thigh, either asleep or well on his way there. Baekhyun and Chanyeol had teamed up in a tug-of-war against Kyungsoo, and it was a surprisingly even match. And Chen and Yixing…

 

Kris started, surprised, then relaxed back against the wall. Chen and Yixing, who had been separated from “their baby” for more than a week now, had Tao pinned down between them. They were obviously taking great pains to avoid hurting him, but each wolf was carefully sniffing him over. As he watched, Yixing paused, his paw resting over one of the younger man’s kidneys. He huffed at Chen, who nosed Tao’s shirt up, revealing a large bruise. The two immediately began lecturing Tao, either completely forgetting that they couldn’t actually speak in this form, or trusting the sound to get the idea across as much as words might have.

 

Kris couldn’t help it; he started to laugh. Unfortunately, the laughing turned into coughing fairly quickly, but he was smiling even as he hacked. His coughing also drew the attention of everyone in the room, but while the others soon turned away, having accepted that it was just what it was, Suho came bounding over. He cocked his head to one side and stared at Kris for a long moment, and then turned his head the other way. After a moment, he huffed a canine sigh and lay down, resting his head on Kris’s crossed ankles.

 

“Hey, Suho,” Kris said, reaching down and rubbing his ears. “I think it’s gonna work out. Yeah?”

 

Suho lifted his head, nodded, and then settled back down, content to watch the rest of the group play.

 

\---

 

He’d made a huge mistake, letting Chen and Yixing find out about the bruises.  Because as much as he didn’t think of them as being too much of a problem, the three (because of course Minseok had found out) didn’t seem to agree with his read on the situation, and there was little to no chance of the bruising stopping any time soon.

 

When he had finally admitted to over-training in an effort to unstress, SM’s overall trainer had called in his usual Wushu partner, and the next time Junjie had come, he’d brought another expert. Lina was tall, skinny, and hit like a truck.

 

“We’ll get you up to the next level of fighting fit,  _dìd_ ì,” she had said, grinning at him as they’d finished their first spar. “That was a good warm-up. Now let’s see what you can really do.”

 

And so he’d found himself practically a punching bag to woman who was far, far better at  _Changquan_  than he was. Not only did she have him practicing  _cekongfan_  until he thought his head would come off, but she had him trying to use the leaps and flips to avoid her strikes. When she got tired of him failing to dodge, she tried to beat  _bajiquan_  into his head, which was where the majority of his bruises were coming from.

 

Junjie usually sat out of the boxing lessons, but he was a great spotter during the more acrobatic moments of the workout. It was thanks to his quick hands and patient explanations that Tao didn’t have more bruises.

 

Not that any of his motherhens would accept that as an answer. No, they seemed to have drawn straws and written up a schedule. Someone was assigned to ask after his health, another if he had any injuries, and the third would lunge out at him, sniffing out any injuries or unwellnesses he had not seen fit to confess.

 

Then all three of them would smother him in care and ice and bruise balm and, one memorable time, bandaids. Luhan later announced—over dinner, of all things—that it had been rather like watching humans trying to pill an uncooperative and kind of pissy cat, but for the part where the cat was taller than any of the humans and two of the humans had reverted to giant dog status in an effort to hold him down.

 

After that, the bandaids stayed out of the picture.

 

The motherhenning, however, did not end. Eventually, Tao just came to accept that if he copped to the small injuries he picked up in practice, the others were soothed by licking over his wounds and setting him free.

 

\---

 

 _I’m dying_ , Tao thought, delirious and awash in pain.  _There’s something wrong with me, and I’m dying_.

 

With a whimper, he reached down between his legs and clutched his testicles. When the pain had started, he had thought that maybe he had a hernia, or he’d twisted a testicle, but the stabbing fire had just gotten worse and worse, until he was lying here, in bed, crying into his pillow.

 

He had his room to himself, right now, because Kris had gotten into the habit of cratering in the office, or sleeping on the couch in the living room, or falling asleep in K’s dorm. That was a relief; he had been doing everything he could to avoid his leader. He knew that Minseok was right, and that he needed to talk to the other man and clear the air, that Kris wasn’t actually angry with him, but…

 

He was scared. He was just as scared of talking to Kris as he was of whatever the hell was going on right now.

 

Turning his face into his pillow, Tao whimpered. He was going to die, and at this rate, he was looking forward to it. Death was going to be way, way more pleasant than this; death would stop the hurting. Which wasn’t that he wasn’t used to pain. No, Tao had more than a passing familiarity with pain; that was just one of those things about practicing wushu and dance and kpop in general. But this—this was far too much pain, in a place that pain did not belong.

 

He was feverish, too. The others had crept out to enjoy the late summer evening atop the apartment building, and Luhan had gone in search of Sehun, trying to repair their relationship. That meant that there were no sensitive wolf-ears or wolf-noses to hear or smell that anything was wrong, and no human  _gege_  determined to cuddle him into happiness (Luhan was not subtle in his efforts to cheer others up, not in the slightest.) With Kris conked out and snoring, there was no risk that anyone would come in and find Tao like this.

 

He was glad of that. If there was one thing Tao hated, it was making people worry overmuch. And if anyone in the group knew, knew that he was lying in bed, holding himself and crying, they would worry.

 

So really, it was for the better that he was all alone right now.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Baozi (and mandu!) dog toys are apparently totally a thing that exist. Check it out: http://flickriver.com/photos/claire_lynn/5455494891/
> 
>  
> 
> Changquan, or "Long Fist", is the incredibly acrobatic form of wushu that ninety percent of the non-martial arts world thinks of. It's marked by its use of external movements--explosive, fully extended kicks and long strikes.
> 
> Cekongfan are the side somersaults that Zitao has shown off several times. They're usually combined with other elements, but even on their own, they're hella impressive because, lol, LOOK MA NO HANDS.
> 
> Bajiquan is a form of wushu that's a lot more about sharp, explosive motions, especially elbow strikes. It would be a fair bit of a change, for Zitao to start working with these shorter motions, not to mention a struggle, as he's so lanky. Which made me laugh.


	7. Chapter 6

Last Time:

_He was glad of that. If there was one thing Tao hated, it was making people worry overmuch. And if anyone in the group knew, knew that he was lying in bed, holding himself and crying, they would worry._

_So really, it was for the better that he was all alone right now._

**CHAPTER SIX**

For a long moment, Sehun stood just at the edge of the door, looking at Luhan on the couch. The older man was frowning, fidgeting like always, looking at his phone. It was a rough contrast to what their movie nights usually looked like—Luhan flitting around the room, looking at the latest notes Chanyeol had stuck on the wall, while they argued about movie choices. This Luhan was too uncertain, too nervous.

 

_You fucked up, Oh Sehun_ , he thought, one hand clenching into a fist.  _You picked that damn fight_.

 

Yeah, he’d picked the fight, and he’d regretted it almost as soon as it had started. He’d wanted Luhan’s attention back on him, yes, and he’d felt more than a little betrayed that Luhan not only wasn’t paying him the same attention but that he hadn’t even gone the distance of talking to him, of confiding in him, like he always did. But that didn’t mean that he hadn’t started yelling over something stupid, or that he hadn’t been the one to make Luhan cry.

 

And that had been the biggest sign something was wrong, hadn’t it? Because normally, if Luhan’s wide, baby-deer eyes were damp, Sehun was the one roaring up to tear the offender to pieces.

 

Only this time he’d been the offender, and there had been no one there to tear him up.

 

Shit.

 

Steeling himself, Sehun stepped into the room, carrying the secret box of chocolate candies he kept hidden in the kitchen as a peace offering.

 

Luhan, seeing him, sat upright in a flash. His phone vanished into his pocket and his fingers bounced wildly on his knee as he treated Sehun to a nervous, wobbly smile. “Hey, Sehunnie.”

 

“You’re a fucking idiot,  _hyung_ ,” Sehun said, flopping down next to Luhan.

 

Luhan turned sad eyes in his direction. “Sehunnie?”

 

“Like I said,” Sehun continued, ignoring him. “A fucking idiot. You really think I care about whether or not you wore my tennis shoes to go work out?”

 

“But…Sehunnie…”

 

“I mean, I care about the part where it turned into a catfight, because Jessica- _noona_  still won’t stop emailing me about that, and it’s getting fucking annoying,” he said. He still wouldn’t look at Luhan. “But that’s not really what that was all about, was it,  _hyung_?”

 

“No,” Luhan said, quiet. He turned his face to look at his knees. “I’m sorry.”

 

“I know,” Sehun said. He stretched out an arm, reaching for the remote that was beside Luhan. The move had the benefit of tucking his arm around Luhan’s thin shoulders. “So you can make it up to me by watching shitty horror movies with me.”

 

Luhan cringed. “You know I—”

 

“Am a chickenshit? Yup. But I still like you, anyway, for some dumb reason, so we’re going to watch my shitty movies, and you’re never going let me make you cry ever again, you stupid baby.”

 

Smiling to himself, Luhan snuggled against Sehun as the titles for  _The Flu_  began to stretch across the screen.

 

\---

 

Tao woke up.

 

Unfortunately.

 

He still hurt, maybe even worse than he had the night before. The pain had migrated, though. Instead of being in his balls, it was in his gut, now. It felt like someone was squeezing his intestines, his kidneys, his bladder. Like he was being stabbed, but on the inside.

 

He whined and curled himself into the foetal position. His hands shifted from his crotch to pressing hard against his lower abdomen. Shit. Had he gotten a urinary tract infection? Baekhyun had gotten one that one time before debut, and he’d certainly made it sound like it hurt like hellfire, which was a good reflection of how Tao was feeling.

 

And then he knew, he knew, he  _knew_  he was about to throw up. Lurching to his feet, Tao tore down the hall and locked himself in the bathroom. He fell to his knees and brought up everything he hadn’t eaten in the last two days.

 

“Tao?” someone called through the door.  
  
“Think I’ve got Yi-ge’s virus,” he said, miserable. He heaved again.

 

“Ugh, gross. Alright.”

 

“Go back to bed when you’re done,” Minseok instructed, sounding harried. “I’ll leave some Gatorade and crackers on the bedside table for you. Small sips, little bites.”

 

Tao gritted his teeth. “Got it,” he said.

 

“Feel better!”

 

The door clicked behind them as they left.

 

\---

 

Minseok stared at Luhan. “You’re kidding, right, XiaoLu?”

 

“I’m not,” Luhan insisted, shaking his head. “Look, it makes sense. Think about it, yeah? We all know that the rest of us are going to get bitten or hurt or something. It’s only a matter of time. So why not take control of that? If I get bitten now, I change now. When we have time, and space, and I can go through the whole furrying process in the comfort of my own house with my friends nearby cuddling me. And don’t even tell me that that’s not the point; I saw how much easier it was for you, that way.

 

“Plus, right now? We’re all thinking of the advantages.  _Duizhang_ ’s little play-date idea worked out really, really well. Before you even start, yes, I know that there are downsides. The whole emotional barometer thing, for one, and for two, that whole  _grrr-arrgh_ -claws-fangs thing. But if it’s got a ninety percent chance of happening to me anyway? I’m taking control of it.”

 

His piece said, Luhan folded his arms over his chest and sat back against the wall.

 

Minseok sighed and scrubbed his hands across his face. “LuLu, this isn’t something you can take back when it doesn’t work out.”

 

Luhan arched one fine eyebrow. “I have no intentions of taking it back,” he said calmly. “You know that, MinMin.”

 

“Yifan will kill you. Hell, Yifan will kill  _me._ ”

 

“You let me handle  _Duizhang_.”

 

As gentle and sweet as Luhan looked—and sometimes acted—he had a will of steel, and no one got away with pushing him around. He’d push back, twice as hard, and Luhan had way of always winning.

 

He didn’t have a reputation for starting fights, Minseok remembered, but Luhan sure as hell was known for finishing them.

 

“Alright,” Minseok said, sighing heavily. “But not right now. Tonight. When we leave.”

 

“At dinner break,” Luhan countered. “We’ll only be here for a little while after that. It’ll get my blood moving, which will spread it faster. The fever will hit by the time we leave, and I’ll be a were by morning.”

 

Minseok blinked. “You’ve really thought about this.”

 

“I told you,” Luhan said. “I’m not going into this blind. I’ve looked at the upsides and the downsides. Consider this my informed decision.”

 

Impressed, the other man nodded. “You got it, LuLu. Just, do me a favour?”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“You’re the one who gets to tell the  _duizhang_.”

 

\---

 

Luhan waited until Minseok had apologetically licked the bloody mark on his forearm, then wrapped the wound in clean cotton. He bound it off with tape, and was already lowering his sleeve back down over the incriminating bandaging as Minseok started shimmying back into his clothes.

 

“Remember,” Minseok said, “you get to tell Yifan. When I’m in a different room. Or country.”

 

Luhan snorted. “I remember,” he said. “Now, go on. Get out of here. Go get something to eat. You’re looking peaky.”

 

Minseok rolled his eyes. “I’m getting, I’m getting,” he said, suiting actions to words and sliding out of the small changing room.

 

Luhan followed a few seconds later, once he had calmed himself back down. It wasn’t that he was afraid of Minseok, even Minseok-the-wolf. But human reactions were ingrained for a reason, and it was hard not to flinch when teeth that white and that sharp were coming at you for what you knew was going to be a hell of a bite. Even when you had asked for it.

 

Kris was still waiting in the larger practice room, staring blankly at himself in the mirror. He didn’t so much as blink when Luhan approached him.

 

“ _Duizhang_ , you need a break,” Luhan said. Careful of his arm, which was starting to throb, he eased himself down to sit next to Kris. “Waiting for the  _dìdì_  to bring you dinner?”

 

Kris nodded. “Maknae line are on a food run.”

 

“Chances of that ending in disaster?”

 

“High, but not so high as to not make them work,” Kris said. “Sehun’s getting a little big for his britches.”

 

Luhan snorted. “As long as it’s real food that comes back, and not, like, a bag of chips.”

 

“We sent a manager with them for that exact reason,” Kris said. “We’re not dumb, Suho and I.”

 

“Just overworked,” Luhan agreed. “Shove over.” He pushed and prodded until Kris rolled over onto his stomach, and then tapped his shoulder. “Okay if I…?”

 

“Ugh,” Kris grunted, closing his eyes. “Go for it.”

 

Luhan nodded. “You got it,  _duizhang_.”

 

He wasn’t as good as Minseok at massages—no one was as good as Minseok—but Luhan wasn’t exactly a slouch, either. He’d gotten good at using his weight to work out knots of tension and to loosen up sore spots that were just starting, meaning he was a prime favourite when Minseok’s hands were already busy. And as tense as Kris was, Luhan didn’t have to work all that hard to find places where he could do some good. He knew he couldn’t solve all of Kris’s problems, but he could at least help him feel a little bit better.

 

“XiaoLu, you’re good at that,” Kris groaned, melting as a knot between his shoulderblades suddenly let go. “Shit. Where’d you learn that?”

 

“It’s a little something I picked up from Min- _ge_ ,” Luhan said. He bit his lip. Now was a good a time as any to bring it up…

 

“Ah,  _duizhang_?”

 

Kris stiffened, ever so slightly. “What else did you pick up from Minseok- _hyung_?” he asked, a note of pleading in his voice.

 

Luhan winced, already trying to soothe the tension that had just come back. “Well, nothing that can be treated with antibiotics—”

 

“Not time for bad jokes, LuLu.”

 

“He bit me.”

 

There. All his cards were laid out on the table, clean and easy as that.

 

Kris sighed, his eyes sliding shut once more. “ _Ngong gau_.”

 

Luhan recognized the sentiment behind the swear, even if he didn’t speak Cantonese. “Relax,  _duizhang,_ ” he said, even as he leant harder into a tight knot. “For what it’s worth, I asked him to bite me. Well, I told him he was going to bite me, really. I backed him into a corner. He had no choice.”

 

“He had a choice,” Kris said, clearly unhappy but aware that there was nothing he could do. “He always has a choice. Same as you.”

 

“Fair,” Luhan said. He shrugged. “But, Yifan, I promise you, I thought about it first. I took a good look at it from all directions, and, really? This is the best option. For me, at least. I mean, as much time as we spend together, you know that there are going to keep being infections, no matter how careful we are. You still aren’t one hundred percent sure how, where, or when Suho got bitten enough to start the change. How many accidents are there going to be? Maybe not as bad as what happened to Kyungsoo and Kai—”

 

“You remember that?”

 

Luhan lifted a hand from his back to wobble it, seesaw-like, in midair. “Sort of? It’s six of one, a half-dozen of the other between what I really remember and basically having been stoned out of my mind on  _ji_ _ŭw_ _ĕihú_  juice.”

 

“Technically I think Daesung- _sunbaenim_  is a  _gumiho_ ,” Kris said.

 

That gave Luhan pause. “Same creature, different word, right?”

 

Kris shook his head—well, rolled it from side to side. “In this case? I actually think different word for similar, but still different, creatures.”

 

“So… _lang ren_  and werewolves…?”

 

“Far as I can tell, still same.”

 

“Fuck,” Luhan said. “Talk about confusing.”

 

Kris snorted into his arms. “Tell me about it.”

 

\---

 

Tao could hear movement. Nervous, hurting, he checked the door. Still locked. Good.

 

“TaoTao?”

 

Shit. That was Minseok’s voice. He wasn’t just going to leave because Tao didn’t answer. Hell, if Tao failed to respond, there was every chance in the world that Minseok would actually break down the door. Or get Chen to pick it open, whichever was the more convenient to him at the moment. He’d done it before, both the employing Chen to pick locks and the actually breaking down the door. Admittedly, the door in question had been cheap, but…

 

His mind was wandering. “Yeah, Min- _ge?”_

 

“How are you feeling,  _jagi_?” Minseok asked. He sounded like he was standing against the door. He probably was.

 

Tao sighed. “Awful,” he said, entirely truthfully.

 

“I’m sorry,” Minseok said. “I’d hug you if I could.”

 

“Probably not a good idea,” Tao said. “You don’t want to get whatever this is.”

 

“Yeah,  _Duizhang_  looked pretty miserable when he had it, and you sound like the wrong end of a good weekend,” the other man agreed. “Do you need me to bring you anything? More juice, more crackers?”

 

Tao shook his head, only to realize that there was no way Minseok could know that. “No,” he said. “I think I’m good. I haven’t really eaten or drunk all the stuff you left.”

 

“But you have eaten something?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Good,” Minseok said. “I know it sucks to eat when you’re feeling vomit-like—sorry, I don’t know that word in Mandarin—but it will help if you have something in your stomach. Even if it just gives you something to vomit.”

 

“Nauseated,” Tao said. “That’s the word you’re looking for. And I’m not really vomiting any more. Just feel…how did you say? Like the wrong end of a good weekend.”

 

Minseok laughed. “Okay, TaoTao. We’ll leave you alone. Luhannie got bit, so we’re going to be having a powwow on K’s dorm room floor tonight.  _Duizhang_ will be here, but he’s sleeping in LuLu and Lay’s room. Call us if you need us. Otherwise, sleep well, feel better.”

 

“Thanks,” Tao said. He lay back down atop the sheet, listening to Minseok’s footsteps fading down the hall. He thought he could hear the soft squeak of one of the dog toys they took to keep themselves occupied and quiet in wolf form, but another bolt of pain distracted him.

 

Biting his lip, Tao clutched his abdomen. How much longer could he deal with this?

 


	8. Chapter 7

Last Time:

_“Thanks,” Tao said. He lay back down atop the sheet, listening to Minseok’s footsteps fading down the hall. He thought he could hear the soft squeak of one of the dog toys they took to keep themselves occupied and quiet in wolf form, but another bolt of pain distracted him._

_Biting his lip, Tao clutched his abdomen. How much longer could he deal with this?_

**Chapter Seven**

“Taozi still feels like day-old shit,” Minseok said, whispering in Luhan’s ear. “In the morning, we’re checking on him.”

 

Chen, who had overheard, frowned. “Isn’t Kris looking in on him tonight?”

 

Luhan and Minseok both shook their heads.

 

“Yifan is sleeping tonight,” Luhan said. “Yunmi- _jie_  made him take sleeping pills before we left the SM building.”

 

“And,” Minseok said, “Tao is, with any luck, also sleeping tonight. And you know how he is, anyway. He might be a cuddle-monkey, but he sure as hell doesn’t want an audience while he’s puking up his toenails.”

 

Yixing joined the huddle of Chinese-speakers. “Nah,  _gege_? Someday, I’m going to beat it out of you who taught you some of those phrases. You can’t talk about our music but you can talk about cuddle-monkeys and toenails? I call bullshit.”

 

“Oh, really?” Minseok demanded, turning to him. “Care to wager?”

 

Chen rolled his eyes and pulled gently on Luhan’s shoulder. “Come on, Lu-ya,” he said. “They’re about to start wrestling, again. And then Kyungsoo will join in. Again. And then Baekhyunnie.”

 

“Again?” Luhan offered, smiling as he slid back towards the waiting pile of pillows. The fever raging under his skin was really starting to wear him out—he had no doubt that, even as loud as the group might get, or as hot as it might end up being under all those furry bodies, he was going to be spending the night sleeping like a rock.

 

“Again,” Chen agreed.

 

“Welcome to the pack,” Kai said, dropping an armload of pillows before ruffling Luhan’s hair. “Population, all of us.”

 

“Even the non-furry ones?”

 

“Especially the non-furry ones,” Suho interjected, dodging the tangled mess of tails and limbs that was Minseok and Yixing. “Someone’s got to look out for you lot. Well, that lot?”

 

“I thought that was  _Duizhang_ ’s job,” Luhan said, mock-innocence in his voice.

 

Suho fumbled for a second, then picked up a pillow and swatted Luhan’s angel-sweet expression right off his face. “Oh, you!” he huffed. “Ugh, you are going to fit right in.”

 

“Solid sass,” Luhan said. Holding his captured pillow, he grinned at Suho. “What, you thought Sehun came up with it all on his own?”

 

“Personally,” Kai said, “I’m grateful he’s getting help from somewhere.” He mock-shuddered. “Yah,  _hyung_ , can you imagine if Sehun was that sarcastic without someone else’s help? And Lu-ya’s, at that.” He waved a hand at Luhan. “I mean, not that we don’t love you,  _hyung_ , but it’s kind of a well-known fact around here that you’re the head bitch in charge across the hall.”

 

“Excuse me!” Minseok yelled, leaping out of the furry fray and tumbling into his human form. “Hello, queen bitch right here.”

 

Sehun had probably thought that his muttered “Queen Something, alright,” would go unheard, and, in a normal situation, it would have. Unfortunately for him, he was walking into a room full of werewolves as he spoke. Even in their human forms, their hearing was sharper than that of a normal human, and so Minseok heard him clear as day.

 

 “Yah, Oh Sehun,” he said, raising a threatening finger. “You watch your step,  _maknae_. I know where you sleep.”

 

Luhan laughed, watching the oncoming power play. A sharp squeeze of pain stopped his humour short, however, and his laugh became a surprised groan.

 

Chen quickly pulled the smaller man into his arms, wolfing just enough that his clawed hands wrapped around Luhan’s hips, protection and restraint against his own reactions. The other wolves, dropping their play, quickly came crowding over. Even Sehun dropped the act, a look of concern creasing his pretty face.

 

“Luhannie?” Minseok asked, gentle as a kitten.

 

“Hurts…!” Luhan gritted out between clenched teeth, not looking at anyone. Beads of sweat were already starting to dot his forehead. “Ai!”

 

There was a sharp crackle of bones resettling, and Yixing stretched up and into a nightshirt. “Alright,” he said. “I’m on translation duty tonight, I guess. Unless one of you wants to deal with hallucinating Luhan?”

 

Suho shook his head. “Let’s get the bedding spread out. Kai, you want to—Kyungsoo!”

 

Kyungsoo froze, one paw in the air.

 

“Oh, lord,” Chen said, summing up all their thoughts as they took in the sight before them. “There’s blood on your face. You’ve bit him.”

 

\---

 

As it turned out, Kyungsoo hadn’t  _actually_  bitten Baekhyun. As Chanyeol pointed out, no matter how distracted either one of them might have been, they would have definitely noticed an actual bite. However, one of Kyungsoo’s long fangs raking across the ridge of Baekhyun’s shoulder? That had gone unnoticed—at least until their attention had been drawn to it. And once they knew of it, they couldn’t just leave things to happen slowly.

 

Under Minseok’s careful direction, Kyungsoo had gone ahead and given Baekhyun a little nip, just enough to break the skin, right under the scratch. As a group, they had no intentions of letting Baekhyun suffer through the long, slow,  _painful_  transition that Suho had experienced. No, as Minseok had argued, they might as well let Baekhyun change in comfort, along with Luhan.

 

Kyungsoo licked the wound carefully, urging it to heal. He had his ears folded back, his shoulders down, and his tail tucked tight between his legs. He stared up at the back of Baekhyun’s head with sad eyes, taking great care to be as gentle and soft as possible while cleaning the wound and encouraging it to heal even before the speedy healing of the werewolf kicked in.

 

“I don’t blame you, Kyung-ah,” Baekhyun said, stretching one arm back to awkwardly pat at his friend’s fur. “I was the one who started wrestling you.”

 

Kyungsoo whined and nosed at his hand. Now that the wound was clean, he started nudging Baekhyun towards where Luhan was already lying down, head pillowed on Minseok’s paws, cuddling his friend like a stuffed toy. Hoping Baekhyun would get the idea, Kyungsoo shoved again and laid down.

 

Thankfully, Suho stepped in. “Lie down, Baekhyunnie,” he said, fluffing a pillow for him. “We’re all going to pile on.”

 

Baekhyun laughed quietly. “A puppy pile?” he asked, lying down beside Minseok and Luhan. He opened his arms, waiting. When Kyungsoo didn’t come forward, he huffed and waved at him. “Come on. Or is it just Lu- _hyung_  who gets snuggles?”

 

Kyungsoo edged forward, being sure to give Baekhyun plenty of time to change his mind or shove him away. He settled, at first, just at the edge of his friend’s embrace, but Baekhyun was having none of that. He wrapped his arms around Kyungsoo’s furry middle, just like they were wrestling, and hauled him over.

 

“C’mere,” Baekhyun said, impatient. “Not all of us have furry coats, and it’s too cold to sleep without a blanket, with the air-con on like this.” He tucked his chin against Kyungsoo’s shoulder, trusting that his point had been made.

 

Luhan laughed at the look on Kyungsoo’s face. The wobbling, incoherent sound seemed almost drunken, and knowing why and how he had gotten that way made it seem all the more obscene. He laughed again, more to himself than anything, his fingers twitching loosely against Minseok’s fur.

 

Minseok licked his forehead gently, halfway between concerned mother and indulgent friend. He hadn’t seen Luhan this out of it before, not even when he’d gotten drunk; it would have been more concerning than it was, maybe should have been more concerning than it was, but for the part where he knew why Luhan was so out of it. It was strange, that his friend reacted to pain and fever this way, but he was grateful. Minseok was fairly certain he wouldn’t be able to handle Luhan whimpering and crying his way through the change, nor calling out and begging for help, the way others had.

 

Yixing gently scratched behind Minseok’s ears, as if knowing what was running through his head. “Come on, Lu- _ge_ ,” he murmured, Mandarin a liquid flow. “Sleep, yeah?”

 

“Sleeeeeeeep, yeah,” Luhan giggled, burying his face in Minseok’s white chest ruff. “Everyone’s  _scared_ , ahaha, there’s so much  _blood_  it’s like coins on the floor. Coins full of all kinds of  _love_ —like a wishing well, haha.” He snuggled closer to the wolf.

 

Yixing exchanged a concerned look with Minseok and Chen, the only others in the room who spoke enough Mandarin to follow Luhan’s rambling. Had he…? Grimacing, Yixing slid into that half-space between wolf and man, purposely letting his nose get as wolf as he could. He breathed deeply, trying to get the best scent of the apartment that he could.

 

“My god,” he muttered, barely remembering to use Korean in his surprise. “He’s right. The whole place smells like blood. Blood and, ugh,” he sneezed, “concern. Fear and concern.” Sliding back into his human face, though, he frowned. “But it’s just barely there. I had to look for it, and even then…”

 

Minseok made an odd grumbling noise and gently tapped Luhan’s nose with his own. Ignoring the way the other man fumblingly waved a hand at him, he gave Yixing a dark look.

 

“You might be right,” Yixing said. “He may just have that much better a sense of smell than the rest of us. Weird that his nose went first, though.”

 

Suho shrugged, having been paying attention to the conversation. “We’ve all been changing differently,” he pointed out. “Maybe he’s just getting the senses first? May explain why he’s so…” He frowned, pursing his lips as he tried to think of a way to describe Luhan.

 

“High?” Chanyeol said, offering his leader a flannel sheet from the linen closet. “He said it smelled like love.” He shrugged. “Maybe being able to smell how everyone feels—how you all feel about him—is what’s knocking him for a loop.” He knelt down and ruffled a hand through Luhan’s hair. “Get some good sleep, LuLu. Love you.”

 

“Hmmm,” Luhan purred, his voice muffled against Minseok’s chest. “You doooooooooo.”

 

\---

 

Chanyeol yawned, then took a long moment to stretch just as far as he could in all directions. He could feel his spine popping, and oh, but it felt  _wonderful_. Sun was pouring in through the open window, and he felt like he’d maybe even gotten a whole six hours of sleep.

 

Across the room, on the other mattress, Sehun was curled into a tight little ball. At some point during the night, he had settled himself into the corner of his bed, tucked well into the corner of the room. He had a sheet hauled up to cover him, and all of him that still showed were his feet and his hair.

 

It was almost unfortunate that he had to wake him up—almost. Chanyeol sat up slowly, yawning again. He ran a hand through his hair, hoping to somewhat settle it into something publically acceptable, then rubbed at his eyes. Rising to his feet, he padded across the room, took a hold of the sheet, and  _pulled_.

 

Sehun screeched, an inhuman sound, already lurching towards Chanyeol to rip his eyes out of his head. To Sehun’s downfall—and Chanyeol’s luck—though, the younger man was still more asleep than awake. He tripped over something—the edge of the mattress, a wrinkle in the fitted sheet, his own toes, absolutely nothing, it didn’t matter. The end result was Sehun growling wordlessly up at Chanyeol from the floor, a look as sour as any he’d ever mustered on his sleep-flushed face.

 

Chanyeol laughed uproariously for a bit before offering a hand to the other member. He hauled Sehun to his feet, then ran a hand through the younger man’s pale hair, shaking it out of the tangled muss it had been in. “Breakfast duty, Sehunnie.”

 

“I hate you,” Sehun grunted, reaching for a sweatshirt.

 

“Love you, too,  _maknae_ ,” Chanyeol said. He waited for Sehun to get comfortably buried in the soft fabric, grabbed his wrist, and yanked him down the hall to the kitchen.

 

There were eight werewolves asleep in a messy tangle on the floor of the living room, still asleep. Though they had been a fairly even mix of wolf and human the night before, at some point, most of them had transformed back into their human shapes. It looked like the aftermath of a wild night, and that seemed to lift Sehun’s spirits, somewhat. He pulled his cellphone out from wherever he had secreted it earlier, flipped to the camera, and quickly started taking shots of the whole situation. Clearly, he had deemed it all blackmail-worthy.

 

Chanyeol peeked over his shoulder and snorted at what he saw. Having captured a few shots of the group as a whole, Sehun had turned his lens on the individuals. He was getting pictures of Minseok drooling into Luhan’s hair, Luhan snuggling against Yixing’s shin, and Kyungsoo snoring with his mouth wide open. He took a few pictures of Kai, sprawled out half on top of Chen, half beneath Baekhyun, and Suho, who looked like he might maybe have had his thumb tucked into his mouth.

 

(If he did have his thumb in his mouth, Chanyeol was willing to bet that Sehun already had photos. He roomed with the leader, after all, and had undoubtedly had plenty of chances to get embarrassing pictures to humiliate him with already.)

 

“If you’ve got enough ammunition, Sehunnie,” Chanyeol said, thumbing towards the kitchen. “Food? It doesn’t cook itself.” He didn’t wait for Sehun to respond, having already started towards the kitchen.

 

Sehun followed him, a look of melodramatic shock on his face as he watched Chanyeol rummage through the refrigerator. “It’s  _not_  delivered by the food fairies?”

 

“You are the single most spoiled  _maknae_  in the entirety of Korea,” Chanyeol told him, thrusting the thing of kimchi at him. “I’m making  _jjigae_  and pancakes. Want anything else?”

 

“Do we still have eggs? I want an omelet.”

 

Chanyeol snorted. “Omelet,  _jjigae_ , and pancakes. Right. Get the stuff out.” He turned to the stove, already preparing the cookware he was going to need for all of the planned food.

 

He started with the pancakes and omelet, putting Sehun in charge of stirring things while he set about chopping the ingredients for a lighter, breakfast kimchi stew. When those were ready, they changed places. Chanyeol dropped batter into the heated frying pan and started making pancakes while Sehun threw in the indicated ingredients at the indicated time. It wasn’t the smoothest show of cooking prowess, all things said and done, but it wasn’t a disaster, either, so Chanyeol was willing to call it a draw. He ended up making several more omelets than he had planned, as Sehun was utterly impatient and gobbled up the first one, straight out of the pan, and only waited long enough that the second wouldn’t burn his fingers before eating that, too.

 

“Greedy  _maknae_ ,” Chanyeol scolded, waving a spoon at him.

 

“Grumpy  _hyung_ ,” Sehun returned, sneering.

 

Chanyeol sneered back, only half-paying attention as he spooned up bowls of rice. “Right. Go wake up the  _hyungs_ , Sehunnie. Go. Shoo!”

 

Sehun sauntered out into the living room, as if it had been entirely his idea. He carried a plate of omelet, already planning on taunting the sleepers with the hot, delicious smelling food. They would wake up or they wouldn’t eat!

 

\---

 

“I found Yifan!” Luhan chirped, bouncing in to the crowded room, Kris a half-step behind him. “But Zitao wasn’t answering, so I think he’s still feeling—what’s wrong?”

 

Kris, looking around the room, asked a more pertinent question. “Who was it this time?”

 

Glowering, Sehun raised a bandaged hand in the air.

 

“What did you—” Kris started. Stopping, he shook his head. “No, actually. Nevermind. I don’t care what you did. I just care that we’re not letting it get in the way. You’re going to practice today.”

 

“Until the fever hits,” Suho said. “We’ve already started that conversation.” Pasting a very obviously fake smile on his face, he turned to Luhan. “How are you feeling, LuLu?”

 

Luhan beamed at him. “I’m feeling great!” he said. “You didn’t tell me it was like this! I haven’t been this happy in a long time!”

 

“I can tell,” Chen muttered, catching Luhan as he spun past. “Come on,  _gege_. Sit down and eat something.” He looked up at Kris. “That goes for you, too.”

 

Kris nodded and slid into an empty spot. He watched, bemused, as Minseok and Chen convinced Luhan to sit between them. When they started working in concert to keep him distracted but eating, he raised an eyebrow at Suho.

 

“I don’t really understand it,” Suho said, “but he’s been like this since about midnight. Worse, actually. This is him, settled.”

 

“It’s from the change?”

 

Suho nodded. “As far as we can tell. He keeps saying he can smell all sorts of things; love or care are the ones that are making a constant appearance. Chanyeol thought maybe he was basically overdosing on the smell of how we all feel about each other, and about him.”

 

Kris groaned, letting a bit of pancake fall back to his plate. “Shit. I need to call Stiles—I think I remember something like this, but I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

 

“No one expects you to have all the answers, Wu Yifan,” Suho said calmly. Reaching under the table, he patted Kris’s knee. “You’re doing a great job, alpha.”

 

“I…what? No, Suho-ya, I’m not…you…I…”

 

Suho grinned at his confused face. “You are our alpha, Yifan, even if you don’t realize it. All this time, you have been the one taking care of us and helping us and smoothing over the spaces.”

 

“But you’re the leader,” Kris said.

 

“And I’ll still be the leader,” Suho said. “But you,  _duizhang_ , are going to be our alpha. At least while we’re together.” He knocked shoulders with the other man. “Just think it through.”

 

\---

 

Tao groaned quietly, pressing a hand against his belly as he sat up. It  _hurt_ , still! And while it no longer felt like his testicles were being twisted off, there was the occasional sharp stab of pain from that region, to say nothing of the constant, burning ache in his guts. He was starting to think that it might just be time to suck it up and call a manager, let them take him to see the nurse, or even a doctor, if they thought it was actually as bad as it felt. He hated having an audience when he didn’t feel well, and given how much everyone already looked out for his emotions, he didn’t want them thinking of him as being weak. It would be dumb, however, to hide away until he was actually dead out of pride.

 

Well, he might as well get up and try and get a little more in his stomach before calling the manager on duty. And maybe go pee. He’d finished the bottle of Gatorade that Minseok had left fairly early in the evening, and then drunk up the whole bottle of vitamin water he had replaced it with.

 

The sheets stuck to his legs as he started to slide out of bed. Gross. Maybe he would take a shower, too. His thighs felt sticky, and his knees and elbows were sweat-damped and grotty. The back of his neck felt foul, too, dried and not-quite-dried sweat mixing with the natural detritus of several days of unwashed hair. Yes. A shower was definitely on the docket before calling the manager. At least a rubdown with a wet rag.

 

Tao turned to make the bed, more out of habit than anything. That was, quite possibly, the only reason he saw the stain that spread across his sheets.

 

_That explains the stickiness_ , he thought, his head a dizzy, distant whirl. In that moment, he slipped the bonds of his body, disconnected, drifted away. Whatever had once tethered him to this world, to this reality, it had gone, and in its place, Tao found only a strange, certain numbness that spread slowly until his every centimeter was a buzzing emptiness of non-existence. It was strange. It was wonderful.

 

He drifted away from the bed, long-forgotten limbs striking against the short table that stood between the two beds, against the foot of the other bed, against the chest of drawers. The cheap laminate wood might as well have passed straight through him, for all he felt it. There was a clatter as something, as several somethings, fell to the floor, disturbed by his passage. Then Tao was meeting his own shimmering orange eyes in the mirror on the back of the door.

 

And then they were rolling back in his head.

 

And then Tao was falling, but he had already passed out, so he didn’t know.

 


	9. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please see end notes for possible trigger warnings.

Last Time:

_And then Tao was falling, but he had already passed out, so he didn’t know._

 

**Chapter Eight**

Chanyeol cringed away from Kyungsoo’s teeth when they approached his hip, but Kris just stripped away his shirt and sat down on the floor, letting the others come at him with their teeth. (He’d figured—they had all figured—that more nips would bring the change on faster, stronger. And like Luhan had said, there was really no point in just waiting anymore; it was going to happen, so why not let it happen—make it happen—on his own terms? He had no intentions of letting Suho down, no intentions of letting the rest of them—Minseok with his gentle trust, Tao with the stars in his eyes, Chen with his quiet hope, Luhan with his laughter and his easy touches, Yixing with all the patience he had given him so far—feel like he had not given them absolutely everything he had.)

 

Minseok’s teeth were the first to sink in, driving a sharp bolt through his right shoulder. Suho bit into his left shoulder, while Yixing and Chen and Kyungsoo and Kai bit at his ribs. Luhan took his hand in his teeth, gentle as the whisper of the spring wind, and then bit,  _hard_. Baekhyun’s teeth sank into his upper arm.

 

Sehun had not completed the Change yet. Chanyeol was only bit seconds before Kris accepted his friends’ and members’ teeth. Tao was ill—

 

Tao was ill? As the wolf clicked into Kris’s brain, the feeling of  _right_  and  _home_  and  _us_  settling in (Suho was right; he was the Alpha, he had been the Alpha) something about his family felt wrong, felt like wiggling a loose tooth.

 

“ _Hyung_?” Kai asked, cocking his head to the side.

 

Kris shook his head. “I, uh. The Change. I can feel it. I can feel you. All of you.”

 

“Like Luhan?” Yixing asked. There was a note of concern in his voice; who could blame him? Luhan was still out of it, snuggled tightly between Minseok and Yixing, both because he was twice as handsy as usual right now and because they were worried about what might happen if they let him loose.

 

“No,” Kris said. He shook his head again. He wasn’t sure if he was underlining the weirdness or if he was trying to settle something intangible inside his brain. “No, not like Luhan. Like I know where you all are. How you all are. Except for Sehun and Chanyeol. They’re like…like whispers. Ghosts.”

 

“You can feel us as wolves? As your pack?”

 

“I think?” Kris frowned. “I can feel all of you. Everyone. Except Sehun and Chanyeol.”

 

Chen’s eyes narrowed. “You feel Tao?”

 

“I feel Tao-ish. He feels wrong. Hurt.” Kris looked at them, a worried look on his face. “Where’s Tao? Tao isn’t okay. We need to find Tao.”

 

He struggled to his feet, not heeding the hands that reached for him, ignoring the fact that his torso was smeared with blood and saliva. He was still wearing pants, which gave him an edge over the others; most of them had gone full-wolf in order to bite him most effectively. Only Minseok and Luhan had kept a fair amount of their human forms; they trailed tight behind him as Kris streamed across the hall, searching for where the screaming  _Tao_  in the back of his mind had hidden away.

 

“Tao? Tao!” he called, fighting his way into the apartment.

 

He stopped in front of his own room, his and Tao’s, the one they had shared before this had all started. He tried the door handle, but it rattled in his grasp, locked. “Jongdae. Jongdae!”

 

“I’m here,  _hyung_ ,” Chen said, even as he hitched his pants up higher on his hips. He found a paperclip in the pocket of his sweatpants, already unfolded. He slid to his knees in front of the door, letting Minseok edge Kris out of the way, so that he could work.

 

There were a few moments of tense silence, the only sounds the scrape and rattle of Chen’s impromptu lockpick in the doorknob. Because of the absolutely pin-drop quiet, they could all hear the click as the tumbler finally gave up the ghost and the lock came undone.

 

Kris jolted past Chen, shoving him roughly out of the way so that he could force the door open the rest of the way. “TaoTao! Huang Zitao! Where are you?”

 

A low whine came from under the bed.

 

Kris crouched down. “TaoTao?”

 

Golden eyes, buried deep in pale brown fur, met his for a short moment, mere seconds. Another whine, and the eyes vanished back into the darkness, the barest flick of a tail and the click of claws on wood suggesting that Tao had crept further under the bed.

 

\---

 

“He’s not coming out,” Minseok muttered, not bothering to turn and look at Luhan as he updated him on what was going on. “ _Duizhang_ ’s been down there on his knees for at least half an hour. Tao’s not moving.”

 

“Well, he is,” Luhan said. He offered the other member a glass of orange juice. “Just, not in the direction we want.”

 

Taking the juice, Minseok snorted. “Accurate statements, Luhannie. How are you feeling?”

 

“Better,” the other man said. “Being around less people is helping. And I think I’m getting more used to it.” He grinned. “I don’t feel like rolling around in a field full of bunnies, anyway.”

 

“Not even to eat them?”

 

Luhan thought for a moment. “Okay, I might actually eat one. Maybe. I am a bit hungry.”

 

“Well, I’ll start making lunch as soon as we get Tao-ya out from under the bed,” Minseok said. “So, if you want to hurry that along, go find Chen.” He shot another look into the dark room. “Somehow, I don’t think that  _Duizhang_ ’s going to be as successful as he hopes.”

 

\---

 

Kris was not as successful at talking Tao out from under the bed as he had been hoping to be.

 

After he had tried for an hour to convince Tao to come forward, to crawl to where they could see him, reach him, touch him, even Kris had admitted that M’s  _maknae_  wasn’t going to move. He had let Chen and Minseok come in, then. Minseok had joined Tao on the ground, wolf-shaped, while Chen and Kris had lifted the bed. Luhan had waited at the door, ready to grab for Tao should he make a bolt for it.

 

Minseok pressed his nose against Tao’s as he joined him under the bed, wanting to comfort the younger man. He also wanted more confirmation on the strange smell drifting from Tao’s body—a smell he didn’t think he had smelled before as a wolf, one that his brain was struggling to place, to identify. Tao did not smell like the other members, the other wolves he had smelled. He didn’t smell like Kris, either; he didn’t have that strange-familiar odor that was so like the other members but just that slightest bit different, a little bit strange.

 

Tao tried to flinch away, but he was buried against the wall and there was nowhere else for him to go. Instead, he held rigidly still, refusing to look at Minseok. Instead, he flicked his tail up to cover his face.

 

Minseok yipped at him, frustrated. Honestly, did Tao think that he was the only one who had become a wolf? Did he think that so much had changed? Just as quickly as Minseok’s anger had surged, it faded again, leaving a paralytic sadness in its wake. He sighed, then lunged forward and licked a broad stripe across Tao’s muzzle. He pinned the younger wolf in place, trying to soothe him through calm grooming.

 

Tao lurched against the contact when Chen and Kris lifted the bed, but the heavy weight of Minseok’s body kept him in place. Like this, in their fully-furred wolf forms, Minseok actually was larger than he was, weighed more. It helped him hold Tao down while their human friends moved the bed.

 

When the bed was out of the way, Kris sat on the floor. “TaoTao?” he said, opening his arms. “TaoTao? Can you come here?”

 

Minseok moved, letting Tao have space. They all waited to see how he would react.

 

After a long moment, Tao stood up. He shook himself carefully, slowly, and then began to slowly cross the room. He wobbled on his new legs, unfamiliar with them. He had spent so much of his time in this form lying down that walking was not only strange and unfamiliar, but uncomfortable, too, because his feet were still numb.

 

Kris caught him as he staggered towards him, welcoming him into the warm circle of his arms. “Oh, TaoTao,” he murmured, wrapping his arms around Tao’s thin body and burying his face in the thick ruff that surrounded his neck. “ _Duizhang_ was worried about you,  _dìdì_.”

 

Tao whimpered, but gathered himself closer to Kris. He shivered in his leader’s arms, the pain of his transition slowly fading in the wake of the soft scritches of Kris’s long fingers behind his ears, the slow stroke of his hand through his fur. Kris was blanketing him in warm affection, and it felt a lot better than the aching, burning transition.

 

“I figured it out,” Minseok said, accepting the clothes Chen offered him. “The reason Tao-ya smells different from the rest of you.”

 

Chen arched an eyebrow.

 

“Look,” Minseok said, nodding towards where their leader and the youngest member of M were still cuddling. “Notice something missing?”

 

Chen’s eyes widened.

  
Minseok nodded. “Yup. Tao’s a  _girl_.”

 

\---

 

Kris emailed Stiles, explaining the situation and asking him to call back as soon as he could. At the same time, Suho called the managers and the company and, in the midst of an extremely uncomfortable three-way call, started sorting out the various messes that still needed to be dealt with.

 

“You twelve are  _not_  the only not-entirely-human members of this company,” Lee Soo Man said, sounding frustrated. “I would have rather it not start like this, but… Well. We have seen things like this before, and we are more than ready to work with them. There’s a history. Standards.”

 

“Yes,” Suho said. “SHINee  _sunbaenims_  introduced themselves to us. And another person.” He held his tongue on who, exactly, that other person had been. While it wasn’t  _officially_  frowned upon for YG and SM artists to fraternize, let alone to  _fraternize_ , Suho wasn’t sure how much Jinki had told the company, how much the company had figured out, and whether or not there was a rule there.

 

“Another per—oh, well,” Lee Soo Man said. “Yes, there are others in the other companies. I presume Jinki-ya and Kibummie were thorough enough to explain why so many are in entertainment? Yes, good. So. We’ll have you meet with the other local Alphas—it’s important that you start with good relations with them—”

 

“I’m not the Alpha,  _hyung_ ,” Suho said.

 

“You—wha—?”

 

“I’m not the Alpha,” Suho repeated. “Yifan is. He has been. This whole time.”

 

“Even when he wasn’t— Aish. Okay. Well, the same carries over. We’ll have  _him_  meet with the other local Alphas, so that you all can start with good relations with other weres in the area. I will have the other supernaturals in the company come introduce themselves to you, and we’ll talk to the other companies to see about meeting theirs, too. Better you know now, than have you be surprised at a recording or a show or something. Aish.”

 

Suho nodded. “That all sounds very good. Thank you for taking such good care of us.”

 

Lee Soo Man snorted. “Yeah, well. What can we do?”

 

\---

 

Kris brought Suho to the meeting as his second, and was briefly grateful that he had managed to get both his aunt and Stiles (with the addition of Stiles’s Alpha, Derek) on the phone the day before, to discuss his “battle plan”. As such, he’d had a chance to run through both etiquette and expectations on both sides of the equation with people who knew what he’d be facing.

 

SM had offered to host the meeting, but the other pack had turned them down, suggesting instead that they meet at a neutral location. The café suggested was not one that Kris was familiar with, but he was quickly assured that it was located between both of their pack territories and, importantly, it had a private back room that they could use.

 

Kris and Suho arrived at the café first. They each ordered a hot drink, and Suho went ahead and bought a gigantic muffin for them to share. While they were normally incredibly careful about their strict diets—the company had purposely incorporated chances for them to go all out, increasing the chances of their individual nutrition plans being followed—everyone had noticed that they were eating more,  _needing_ more, since being bitten and having the change take hold. Their nutritional plans were now all under review. In the meantime, however, there was the absolutely ridiculously large muffin. And extra whipped cream in their lattes.

 

They had only just received their drinks when the door opened, and in swept two very pretty men, both dressed in plain clothes. They were very close in height, and would have been equally commanding, had it not been for the way the one with the sharp cheekbones strode ahead, the rounder-faced man close on his heels. Kris and Suho rose, bowing to the other men. Their bows were returned, though Suho noted that neither Kris nor the other Alpha bowed quite as low as strict etiquette would have suggested. He himself kept his eyes on the other second, which wasn’t strictly polite, either.

 

“Kim Sunggyu,” the Alpha introduced himself. “Leader of Infinite.”

 

“Wu Yifan,” Kris replied. “Please, just call me Kris.” He gestured to Suho. “This is my second, Kim Junmyeon.”

 

“Suho, please.”

 

“And I’m Sunggyu’s second. Jang Dongwoo. Pleasure to meet you.” Smiling brightly and revealing an awful lot of teeth, Dongwoo started the circle of handshakes.

 

As they reseated themselves, Dongwoo winked at Suho. “Solid choice on the muffin,” he said. “This coffee shop has the best baked goods.”

 

“You’d know,” Sunggyu said, gently flicking the younger man’s shoulder. “You certainly eat enough of them.”

 

“Counseling your pack,” Dongwoo returned. He looked across the table. “Yah, Suho-ssi. Don’t let your Alpha walk all over you. Feel free to tell him he’s being an idiot.”

 

Suho laughed, shaking his head. “He’s got a better idea of what he’s doing.”

 

“No one ever knows what they’re doing,” Sunggyu said, shaking his head. “And if an Alpha tells you differently, they’re posturing.” He turned to Kris. “I understand this is something of a shock to you—your entire group in how long? Less than a month?”

 

“Three weeks, from the first bite to the last,” Kris said, frowning slightly. “It was…well. A bit of a transition. At least they’re all people I know. We know.”

 

“True,” Sunggyu agreed. “When Myungsoo was finally turned, I spent the first month in a total panic that he would bite someone, and we’d have to find a way of building someone into the pack.”

 

“Were you guys a group before you were a pack?” Suho asked.

 

Dongwoo shook his head. “Nah, we were all ‘wolfed before we joined Woolim. Well, all but Myungsoo-yah. But even he was part of a pack. He just happened to be human-born.”

 

“Sungyeollie wasn’t, either,” Sunggyu said. “That’s really why they added him at the last minute. He got bit, I took him in until a proper pack could be found…” He shrugged. “But he fit too well, and that was that.”

 

Kris nodded, fully understanding that feel. He had known it, somewhat, as a member of a pack back in Canada; when someone was a part of the family, whether you had the bond of the wolf or not, you  _knew_ it, felt it in some deep, dark recess of your mind. Moving back to China afterwards—and then on to Korea, where he hadn’t even known one person—had been an abrupt and unpleasant change. Still, now that he had the full packbond, the bond that all wolves, born or bitten, had with each other, and the Alpha bond on top of that… Kris didn’t want to imagine what it would have been like, being pulled away from his pack now.

 

“Are humans in wolf-packs common around here, then?” Suho was asking. “Only, I know Yifan was saying…”

 

Sunggyu turned to look at Dongwoo, explaining even as he did so. “I don’t know so much, actually; I was bitten in middle school. Dongwoo grew up in a pack, though.”

 

Dongwoo see-sawed a hand in midair. “I mean, there were definitely humans in my family pack, yes. When you’re bitten, there’s only like a five percent chance that your children will be born as wolves, and even born wolves sometimes have plain human children. For a given value of plain, anyway.” He nodded to Kris. “You probably have a better grasp of that, actually, than I do, what with having been human and all.”

 

Kris nodded. “I wasn’t completely—” he searched for a word, grimacing, “flat? Blunt? I guess. I always was a little more connected to the wolfpack than, say, someone who had been bitten’s spouse.”

 

“Exactly,” Dongwoo said. “Like, humans end up in packs because they were born into them, or because someone they’re closely connected with ends up in one. We don’t break family bonds, not if we can help it. Sometimes humans end up in packs because they’re not, well, normal humans. In some cases, that’s because of wolf or other blood a little farther down the line. In some cases, well.” He shrugged. “Mutations happen.”

 

“My aunt,” Kris explained to Suho, “is a witch. It comes from my grandfather’s side of the family. He was human. My grandmother was a wolf. All of their children are human. Mostly.”

 

“So,” Sunggyu said, drawing their attention. “The real reason we’re here today is because you need a crash course in being a pack in the industry. Unfortunately, Yifan- _ssi_ , it’s not going to be nearly as easy or as natural as the pack you grew up in. It’s a rough gig, but totally worth it. And SM Entertainment has a long history of working with supernaturals, actually.”

 

“I was a little startled by that,” Kris said. “It feels…counterintuitive.”

 

“Which is likely why it works,” Sunggyu said. “After all, think of how many supernaturals rely on human energy. What better way to get it safely than through performing and being in the public eye so much? Wolves, unfortunately, don’t benefit quite so handily, though I will say that the expected skinship and workbonds of being in a group together really work perfectly for being a pack. I mean, honestly. How else could we keep seven twenty-something men together and not raise eyebrows?”

 

“At least, not raise eyebrows indecently,” Suho muttered under his breath.

 

“I know I’ve smelled at least one incubus around your headquarters,” Dongwoo said, smirking. “Trust me. He? Is enjoying every minute of his job.”

 

Sunggyu placed a hand on Dongwoo’s knee. “So, like I was saying, not entirely as natural as you could hope, Kris- _ssi_ , but there are some upsides to it, too. You know packs. What part of this shall we start with?”

 

\---

 

“That was interesting,” Suho said, following Kris out into the waiting van. “Some of that I don’t think I ever would have thought of.”

 

Kris grunted his agreement, still thinking through what he and Suho had learnt from the other Alpha and his gregarious Second. While it was nice to have an explanation of how cities handled their pack boundaries—and god, but he was grateful he wasn’t going to have to do the same kind of protective line drawing the his Alpha back in Canada had had to do; that had been a miserable process, and no mistake—he was less than excited about the prospect of all the political maneuvering that was headed his way.

 

Sunggyu had warned him that, as the newest pack in the area, their little group was likely to be handed a lot of shit, at least for the first couple of months. While they were going to be given a lot of protection through their relationship with SM, and simply the fact that, as idols, there was absolutely zero chance of them being able to work in the shadows, that wasn’t going to stop anyone else from trying to shove it off on them. He was going to have to keep a firm backbone but also try and keep his temper while dealing with people that really just enjoyed heaping it on the new kid.

 

The other two men had also brought his attention to a few things that he hadn’t completely thought through, in terms of considerations that were now going to be necessary. For one, someone either in the pack or very closely related was going to have to get very, very good at setting up access for EXO in other areas; while Seoul tended to fall under the “we’re civilized people living in close quarters; we will deal with this like adults” provision of pack life, there was no guarantee that everywhere they went for promotions and the like would be as laidback about having 12 werewolves moving in and out of their territories and riling up the locals.

 

Dongwoo had offered Suho his contact list, and promised that he would get their manager in contact with him, so that they could work it out with their manager. It was easier, that way, he had explained, because the companies already handled so much of what they did and when they did it and where. It was basically just another person to call. Some places would expect Kris or Suho to call, rather than delegating it to an out-of-pack human, but those were few, far-between, and already identified on Dongwoo’s list.

 

Suho had really hit it off with the other Second, for which Kris was grateful. When he and the rest of M left for China—and that was going to happen, there were no ifs, ands, or buts about it—Suho was going to have to become the Alpha, of sorts, here in Seoul. Because while Kris could remain the overall Alpha, and likely would, there was just no way for a pack to function properly with no command structure. Which was why Kris had selected Suho as his Second, at least for now. While he honestly thought he might be better served with Minseok, who had mothering the group down to a fine and well-run art, treating Suho as his Second now would give him the authority he would need to be the Alpha  _pro tem_  while Kris was in another country.

 

And besides, Kris would need a Second in China, too. Minseok would easily take on that role at that time, and Suho would be able to select his own Second.  It might mean a dominance struggle or two when the groups folded back together again, but what pack didn’t have those, at least on occasion? Especially a pack formed of young people. Dominance struggles were just the way younger packs worked, as everyone grew up and into their fur, so to speak.

 

“They had some good advice, I think,” Suho said, interrupting Kris’s whirling thoughts. “I plan on getting some of the plans and structures in place that Dongwoo- _ya_  told me about in place pretty much as soon as I can. Did you have a good conversation with Sunggyu- _ssi_?”

 

“I did,” Kris said. “He had some thoughts about why Taozi’s wolf is female.”

 

And oh, but  _that_  had been a hell of a conversation. Nearly as interesting as it had been with Stiles and Derek, the night before.

 

\---

 

_“So his sex as the wolf is completely different from his sex as a human? And, like, it doesn’t correspond with his gender, either?”_

 

_Kris had sighed. “I know that we’re both speaking the same language right now, Stiles, but I have absolutely no clue what you just said.”_

 

_“Right. Um, crash course in gender politics. Sex is what’s going on between someone’s legs, you know, in the metaphorical sense of going on, like, a penis or a vulva or some combination thereof, technically, I guess. Not like literally what’s going on between someone’s legs, like doing to the do, although, I guess, if you want to get real technical, that’s sex, too, just more like the verb than the noun even though it’s a noun, too—”_

 

_“Stiles!” someone on Stiles’s end of the line had snapped._

 

_“Keep your fur on, sourwolf—yeah, yeah, Alpha sourwolf to me, whatever. Maybe not the best time for the gender politics course, but I’ll just finish it off with the idea that gender’s what’s going on between your ears, like if you identify as male or female. Anyway.”_

 

_“I’ve seen him nude,” Kris had cut in, trying to stop another Stiles-explanation before it could start. “Zitao is male.”_

 

_“Ah, but is he masculine?”_

 

_“He has a penis, he has testicles, he calls himself our little brother, and uses masculine pronouns in every language he speaks,” Kris had said. “Also, he panicked so much at finding the new architecture in his wolf form that a nurse had to sedate him. Do you know how much benzodiazepine it takes to sedate a werewolf?”_

 

_“A hell of a lot,” Stiles had said. “I hear you. That must have been frightening. Unfortunately, for me? This is a total aberration from the norm. As in, I have spent eight years around werewolves, and I don’t think I’ve ever heard of this happening. Which isn’t to say that it hasn’t? I mostly deal with American weres, and they’re overwhelming grey wolves, and, as you’ve already seen, there are some major differences between how they work and how your wolves are working. Still, if you were here, and if you guys were the kind of wolf I was familiar with? Well, if the wolf in question was little gender floppy, I’d probably start looking around for some fairies doing the whole wish fulfillment, every time a happy human sings another fairy gets its’ fucking sparkly wings bullshit or maybe a chaos being getting off on the whole mess, but…”_

 

_“A chaos being?” Kris had asked, a chill slowly slipping down his spine._

 

_“Yeah, beings that feed and thrive on chaos and—”_

 

_Kris had cut him off. “Like a trickster? Or a nine-tailed fox?”_

 

_“Either one would be a prime candidate,” Stiles had answered._

 

_Kris had growled, low and deep in his throat. “I have some_ sunbaenim _to murder. Thank you for your help. Please thank your Alpha.” And then he had hung up the phone._

 

\---

 

Suho frowned, looking to Kris as they both stepped out of the car in front of the SM headquarter building. “Did Sunggyu- _ssi_  think that Stiles might be right?”

 

Kris shook his head. “He said it might be an option, and he certainly wasn’t going to put being an asshole past any chaos being—there has to be a story there, but he didn’t elaborate—but apparently it’s more common with Asian wolves.”

 

“Why?”

 

“Something about pack structures,” Kris said. “Which, I mean, I guess I can understand? My pack back home was all grey and arctic wolves, so… They’re different. Different species, different histories, different packs. But Asian wolves have always incorporated humans in their packs. So I guess it makes more sense that whatever keeps the transformation running—”

 

“Magic?” Suho said, a twist in his lips suggesting that he was trying not to laugh.

 

A pained look crossed Kris’s face. “Magic,” he said, as if the word was distasteful. “Whatever. It looks for a way to make the pack a, well, family.”

 

Suho was no fool; he’d googled wolf behaviour pretty much as soon as he could keep human fingertips long enough not to risk killing his laptop. He hadn’t realised how close to nature the were packs held, however.  Unfortunately, that didn’t answer all of his questions. Or even most of them.

 

“But why change Tao-ya? I mean, why not Minseokkie? He’s like the mom to you lot, anyway,” Suho  said, curious to see how Kris would respond. He had his own sneaking suspicions about why magic would make Tao a female in an effort to preserve a “family structure” within the pack, but that was one of those things he wanted to hear Kris say. After all, there was money riding on this. While Suho was not usually one to encourage behind-the-back betting within the group, everyone had had an opinion about how long it would take either Kris or Tao to speak up once they were sharing a room (or, you know, act--both men were prone to letting their actions speak). Even the fact that none of them had thought it would take longer than six months had not dissuaded them from watching.

 

Kris, too busy trying to avoid Suho’s eyes, tripped over something—possibly nothing—on the sidewalk. He lurched forward and fumbled to catch himself, getting a handful of rough brick for his trouble. It scraped up his hand, and he tucked his reddened palm again his chest, still not looking towards the other leader, his Second. But he knew that ignoring him entirely was not an option. Already, Suho was smirking at him, waiting.

 

“It has to do with the Alpha,” Kris admitted. His cheeks had gone from a light pink to a dark, painful-looking red. He refused to meet Suho’s eyes, instead focusing closely on the ground in front of him. For all of that, he still managed to catch a toe in a crack on the sidewalk. “In normal wolf packs—non weres—only the Alpha male and female mate, so I guess…that’s where it comes from?” He kind of hoped that the ground would open up and swallow him, or that the sky might suck him right from the surface of the planet. This was not one of those things he had ever wanted to have to confess to Suho. Or, really, anyone.

 

“But why then Tao?  Or…” A look of comprehension dawned across Suho’s face. “Ah. I understand.”

 

And he did. He’d spent enough time with Kris to know when the other leader was so embarrassed it hurt, and he was pretty sure that he and Minseok were in a unique position to know just how awkward Kris got when he was uncomfortable. Suho bit his lip to keep from laughing; he knew that from where Kris was standing, the situation was likely unbearable, but Suho had a much more prosaic outlook on the whole thing. His Alpha was not the first leader to fall for another member, nor the first emotionally-constipated idiot Suho had been so privileged as to suss out.

 

Kris glared at him. “Not. A. Word.”

 

Suho snorted. “Wouldn’t dream of it. Which isn’t to say Luhan or Minseok won’t say anything. Or Jongdae, for that matter.”

 

“Luhan knows to keep his mouth shut,” Kris said. “And Minseok, too. He’s surprisingly good at keeping secrets.”

 

“And Jongdae?”

 

“Won’t upset Zitao,” Kris said firmly.

 

“Right,” Suho said slowly. “Upset  _him_.” He nodded once.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter includes "gender shenanigans" in the form of a male-identified human discovering that he has a female body as a wolf. His storyline will continue to include dysphoria and anxiety in regards to this. If you have any questions/concerns, PLEASE feel free to contact me!


	10. Chapter 9

Last Time:

_“Luhan knows to keep his mouth shut,” Kris said. “And Minseok, too. He’s surprisingly good at keeping secrets.”_

_“And Jongdae?”  
_

_“Won’t upset Zitao,” Kris said firmly.  
_

_“Right,” Suho said slowly. “Upset_ _him_ _.” He nodded once._

 

**Chapter Nine**

 

Minseok cornered Kris on his way into the building, a few moments after he got back from the meeting with the Infinite pack. His round face was unusually serious, and he wore a tight expression. Suho took one look at the older man and quickly excused himself. Kris was not so lucky, as it seemed to have been him that Minseok was waiting on. Glowering, Minseok caught his wrist in a tight, unmoving grip, and pulled him towards an empty office.

 

“Minseok, I need to—” Kris began to say, trying to edge past the other man’s arm and out the door. His eyes darted rapidly around the small room, as if looking for an exit where there was none. What was this, Torture Duizhang Day? He knew Minseok, and he knew that look on his face. This was going to be another conversation about emotions, he knew it, he knew it. Fuck this. He didn’t have the energy for this. Not today. Maybe not ever.

 

“No,” Minseok said. He was having none of his  _duizhang_ ’s avoidance, not right now, not on this topic. “No,” he repeated. “We’re not meeting with the others for another hour, and even you don’t need to be there for another thirty minutes.” The smile he treated Kris to, if smile it could be called, was sharp, toothy, and vaguely threatening. “I asked Jinki- _hyung_.”

 

Never let it be said that Kris didn’t know when he was beat, or that he was unwilling to admit to it. He shifted from foot to foot for a moment before resigning himself to the obvious. Sighing, he folded to Minseok’s determination, his shoulders slumping and his head lowering. “Yes,  _hyung_?”

 

“You’re avoiding Tao.”

 

It took everything he had in him not to visibly wince, especially considering that this was the third time today that the subject had come up. His conversations with Sunggyu and Suho had been painfully awkward, and neither of them had asked as much of him during it as he knew Minseok would. He could feel the tension building in his shoulders. Awkward, he shook them out, wishing it would be easier to evade Minseok’s sharp gaze.

 

Unfortunately, his silence said as much to the older man as any words might have.

 

“Look, Yifan,” Minseok said, reaching up to rake a hand through his hair. It looked like he’d done that a time or two already today. “I’m not going to ride your case about how you feel for our  _maknae_. And don’t even try and tell me that you don’t know what I’m talking about; you may be an emotional idiot, but even you aren’t that dumb.”

 

“Hey,” Kris said. He felt vaguely insulted by that, in a distant, panic-stricken way. Somehow he’d gone from not talking about his emotions, ever, to being confronted with the fact that, apparently, everyone knew about how he felt about Tao. It was an uncomfortable position to be in. He felt like everyone was staring at him, judging him, making comments about his feelings behind his back.

 

Minseok raised an eyebrow. He waited until Kris subsided, wearing a look of chagrin, then continued. “And you know, if you want to keep your feelings to yourself, that’s all well and good. Time honored traditions and what not. However, your emotional crisis is starting to affect everyone else around you, and that’s the point where I’m going to get involved, got it?”

 

It was Kris’s turn to sigh. Avoiding Minseok’s eyes, he watched himself scuff his feet against the floor. “Minseok, I can’t just—”

 

“I’m not expecting you to tell Tao-ya,” Minseok said. “Again, time honored traditions of emotional constipation around this place.” He waved a hand. “What I am expecting is for you to leader up and start dealing with the rest of the mess.”

 

“How?!” Kris exploded. “It…it’s so…I can’t…” He could feel himself fraying, could feel himself starting to split apart under the strain of having everyone’s eyes on his soft underbelly, metaphorical though it might be at this point.

 

“It is, and you can,” Minseok said. “Obviously, this is not all getting sorted out at once, much as I wish it could happen so easily. But start with the little things. Tao thinks you’re disgusted with him. Did you know that? He thinks he messed up, even before this whole wolf thing, and now he’s got it in his head that you hate him.”          

 

“I don’t hate him.”

 

“I know that. You know that. Hell, if he could think about it logically, Tao-ya probably even knows that. But it’s not trickling through, right now, and can you really blame him? You avoid him, then have no time for him, even though the two of you are the closest of friends and you let him use you like a teddy bear and good luck charm. And now, when he needs that the most—when he needs the same friend who doesn’t laugh at him for not showering alone, the friend who sang to him every night until he fell asleep when we first moved to China—you’re nowhere to be found.” Minseok glared at him.

 

Kris wilted. “I… Minseok, you know I’m not trying to hurt him.” He thought he might be physically incapable of hurting Tao, actually. From the very start, he had wanted nothing more than to protect Tao from the world. He wasn’t too proud to admit that he wanted more than that, now, though; Kris wanted to protect Tao from the world, and from the people in it, and he wanted to wrap himself around the younger man and never, ever let him go.

 

Minseok nodded. “Oh, I know. That’s the only reason I’m not feeding your testicles to you right now. Well, that, and because I think I’d likely need a step-stool to reach your mouth.”

 

Kris cracked a small grin. It was uncomfortable, and didn’t quite fit properly on his face, but it was still a grin.

 

That had been what Minseok had been shooting for. He smiled back. “I’m not asking that you fix it all right now, Yifannie. To be honest, I don’t think you can. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t, or shouldn’t, try.”

 

\---

 

The meeting with the other not-so-human members of SM started with just Kris and Suho. Or, at least, just Kris and Suho representing the newly-formed EXO Pack; the others had already arrived and began settling themselves around the room. After EXO’s two leaders, their Alpha and their Second, introduced themselves (needless, perhaps, given that everyone in the room already knew who they were, but a courtesy nonetheless), they introduced the rest of their pack, welcoming them into the large meeting room.

 

It was a fascinating sight. Luhan, hanging a bit further back on Jinki’s advice, let his eyes move slowly around the room, noting the wild riot of colours and accessories present. At least, that was the best way he could describe what he saw. As of yet, he wasn’t sure what the exact vocabulary was, how one (politely) referenced the streams of light or embossed tattoos that the  _sunbaenim_  were replete with.

 

Inside the room, free from prying eyes, welcoming other members into their supernatural conclave, many of the others had released the small enchantments or shifts in body that helped them hide as plain humans. For some, the change was small; Ara’s eyes were a vibrant lime green, and Henry’s face had melted, shifted, some, but those were the only changes those two seemed to have. Others, like Changmin and Key, were visibly very different. Key was still human-shaped, mostly, though he had glossy blue-black feathers jutting through his hair and in thin lines on his arm, and when he smiled, his teeth were like tiny ivory needles tucked in his mouth. Changmin had fangs curling out from beneath his top lip, and his hair had curled in wide ringlets behind his head and against his neck. His fingernails, too, had grown sharp and strange, much like Luhan’s own when he shifted.

 

The most stunning transformations were Jinki and Amber’s, and the shock of seeing Jinki in his more natural form was blunted by the fact that he had already revealed it to the group, albeit briefly. Too, even fully relaxed into his skin as an incubus, Jinki likely could have passed as a strange human, at least for a few minutes. The charcoal black geometric designs on his face (and his arms, and, Luhan suspected, elsewhere) could have been tattoos, and the colour of his eyes could have been explained by contacts. If they hadn’t been shifting and shimmering, molten metal. His ears, well, Luhan had heard of people having their ears pointed, and there were always prosthetics, like in those movies, right?

 

Amber was harder to explain. She looked much like her normal self, except for the fact that her ears, too, had drawn up into sharp points. They’d also moved further back on her head, while her eyes had shifted ever-so-slightly forward. Not very far forward, Luhan noted, not so that it leapt out at you that her eyes were closer to her nose than they should have been, rather, just far enough that something about her face felt  _off_. Of course, the unnaturalness of her face was a secondary concern, as she was currently hanging in midair from long, shimmering ribbons of light.

 

A slight chiming noise was ringing throughout the room, making his teeth itch. Luhan clenched his jaw and fought the urge to rub at his ears. What was that  _sound_?

 

“Amber, chill,” Henry said, reaching back to swat at her without taking his eyes off the nine wolves that had just filed into the room, plus the two that had already been there. “You’re making my head hurt.”

 

Amber made a face at him, but lowered to the ground. The light at her back shifted, paled, steadied, until it seemed she just had prism bursts hanging behind her. The noise stopped, too.

 

Luhan relaxed slowly, now that the sound was no longer shivering through his ear canals. He looked to where Kris and Suho were standing, looking a little uncomfortable.

 

“So,” Kris said, clapping his hands awkwardly together in front of himself. “Like we said, the twelve of us have recently been bitten and shifted into Tibetan weres; we’ve formed a pack, but, please, continue to look out for us.” He bowed. So, too, did the rest of the group.

 

Changmin beamed at them. “Welcome to our side of the company,” he said. “I know that Lee Soo Man- _sajangnim_  is looking for ways to discreetly introduce you around, so that you get to know the other non-humans you’ll be running into, but it’s always best to start at home. Besides, between us,” and he waved at the assembled group, “we can probably give you a good run down of who is what, how that affects them, and how that’s going to affect you.”

 

Henry nodded. “So. You’ve noticed that we’re all in our most comfortable shape. For us, most of us, that shape’s not entirely human. You guys will be different—are different—because you’re werewolves. You’re actually still human, in reality. Us?” He shrugged. “Key has a human  _form_ , but that doesn’t really make him human. I’m the closest you’re going to get, I think.

 

“You notice my face looks distinctly doggish? That’s because I’m a selkie. I can be human—ish—or I can shimmy into my sealskin and go for a swim.” He grinned, revealing pointed teeth.

 

“And I’m a  _haetae_ ,” Changmin said. “Or a…how do you say it, Henry?”

 

“ _Xiezhi_ ,” he said.

 

Luhan looked at Changmin, paying closer attention to the changes he had seen earlier, tallying them against what he now knew. A lion-dog, huh? That explained the curl to his hair, to his  _mane_. And it also offered an explanation for his four fangs, though nothing was answering how he managed to talk so  _normally_  with them. His face, Luhan noticed, had also definitely taken on a leonine shape. It was subtle, just barely not-human, but it was there.

 

Ara, seated next to Changmin, spoke up next. “Ah, I’m not sure how well you all know me; you see me a lot less than most everyone else here!” She rose to her feet and bowed quickly. “Hello, I’m Go Ara, and I’m Earth-born. Which means very little, except that I’m not human at all, so much as I am a human-shaped spirit of earth.”

 

“She bleeds mud,” Key said, the comment a stage-whisper that earned him an elbow to the ribs from the actress. He blew her a kiss, and then winked at the assembled wolves. “You already know I’m a raven, a trickster being. To give that a little more context, I get my energy from chaos and hubbub and practical jokes.”

 

“And I get my energy from sex,” Jinki deadpanned. He licked his lips, revealing a pointed tongue, and continued. “Or sexual energy. Because I’m an incubus. I also can use pheromones and glamours to play with people’s brains a little bit, or to get a read off of them.” He nodded to Luhan. “Feeling better?”

 

Flushing, Luhan nodded. Jinki had taken him aside the night before and spent a good two hours in an empty room helping him get used to the smell of various emotions and center himself, so that he wouldn’t react nearly so extremely.

 

“Good,” Jinki said, nodding.

 

Amber snorted, shaking her head. Seeing that most eyes in the room had drifted to her, she waved. “Yo. As you can see, not human! Um, I’m fae. So, a fairy, as most of you would know it? Hence the wings.” She gestured to her back with a thumb. “Apparently they make a noise only people with really great hearing can hear when I fly, so, let me know if they’re ever bothering you; nine times out of ten, I can chillax a little. Uh, G Dragon’s in the same boat, just as an FYI, but I don’t think he flies a lot? Anyway, now you know.”

 

“Fairies are real?” Sehun demanded.

 

“Dude. You got bit and now you turn into a wolf and you’re concerned with fairies being real?” Amber said, raising an eyebrow.

 

Sehun flushed. “Pardon me for not being up on my unrealities one-oh-one,” he said, lip curling.

 

Suho set his hand on the back of Sehun’s neck. He didn’t say anything, just pulled, gently, until Sehun’s shoulders slumped slightly and the younger man followed his hand back into the mass of bodies.

 

“Anyway,” Kris said, exchanging a look with his second. “Thank you for telling us. We understand the importance of what you have said, and we will guard your identities as carefully as we guard our own.”

 

Changmin smiled at him. “We trust you,” he said. “We have to.” He looked around at the rest of the group. “Now, I know I can’t speak for all of us, but I definitely know a couple of people in this business who are okay with having their—nonhuman—secret told. Why don’t you all get settled, and we’ll start talking about what it’s like to be on a music program with vampires?”

 

“Step one,” Amber called, hopping up onto a stool in the back of the room, though without using her wings. “They smell funny.” She frowned. “Kind of like Jinki. Only bloody.”

 

\---

 

Kris sighed. He was not looking forward to this, not in the slightest. Still, Minseok had been very blunt with him, and so even if Kris was determined to duck and dodge as much as he could, he knew that the older man could (and  _would_ ) make his life a living hell if he didn’t bite the bullet. And, for all that he tended to do what he could to make life easier on the others, Minseok  _really_  knew how to get under people’s skin.

 

He really needed to stop avoiding Tao.

 

Or this conversation.

 

Same thing, really.

 

Taking a deep breath to steel himself, Kris knocked on the door. It was intended more as a warning than anything, because he was going to be coming inside, unless Tao specifically told him to stay out, but… Well. His mother (and his Alpha) hadn’t raised him to surprise other wolves in their own spaces.

 

“Come in?”

 

Tao sounded drunk. Kris tried not to think of just how wrong that was; he wasn’t used to hearing Tao, sweet, soft, loving Zitao sounding like he was adrift and unleashed. It was strange, uncomfortable, didn’t fit.

 

“Hey, Taozi,” Kris said, coming into the room. He smiled at the other man, seeing him curled under the soft blanket his mother had sent him when he was homesick. It was a strange, forced smile that hurt more than it should have; as wrong as Tao had sounded, he looked even worse.

 

He was pale and washed out, but the circles under his eyes were darker and deeper than ever. He didn’t seem to be aware of that, though. There was an IV in his arm, taped into a gash that Kris had had to cut because werewolves healed too fast for such things, unless injured by an alpha. He’d cried when Kris had cut him, and, looking at him now, the memory made Kris want to cry.

 

Tao hadn’t moved much from the foetal curl he’d tucked himself into, arm held awkwardly to prevent jarring the needle. At some point, he had drifted into that place between wolf and human, so fine downy fur was trailing down his jaw, which had thickened and widened. His teeth were more pointed, better angled now for ripping and tearing. His eyes were golden-orange, shining slightly in the half-dark of his room.

 

“ _Duizhang,”_ Tao greeted, his eyes slipping shut. They had to keep him nearly unconscious to hold off the kind of panic that made it seem that he might actually hurt himself.

 

Every instinct Kris had screamed that this was wrong, that the situation was wrong.  _Sick pack, sick pack!_ the alpha in the back of his head was crying, wolf shoving and scrabbling at his brain in a panicked insistence that something needed to change, that something needed to be done to help Tao.

 

But he didn’t know how.

 

“How are you feeling, TaoTao?” Kris asked, stepping closer to the bed. He dropped into an open-legged squat, so that he was closer on a level with Tao. He didn’t want the other straining his neck to look at him, wasn’t sure that Tao could do that right now, anyway.

 

Tao hummed out some half-answer, the corners of his mouth tipping up. Then, just as suddenly, they dropped. “ _Gege_ ,” he said, stretching out a hand towards Kris. “ _Gege_ , I’m wrong.”

 

“Oh, Zitao,” Kris said. He could feel his heart breaking in his chest. Reaching forward, he caught Tao’s wandering fingers, tangling them up with his own. “You’re not wrong,  _xiao Taozi_. You’re wonderful. You’re perfect. You’re my little TaoTao.”

 

“M a girl,” Tao said. “But ‘m not a girl. Right? So what am I?”

 

“You’re my Tao,” Kris said again. “Whether you’re a human or a wolf or somewhere in between, you’re Tao. My  _dìdì_. My Taozi _._ ” He squeezed Tao’s hand.

 

That didn’t seem to sit too well with Tao, though. The younger man frowned sleepily at Kris, his pupils blown and his eyes unfocused but open. “But ‘m not y’r  _dìdì_ ,” he slurred. “Not as a wolf. ‘m a  _girl_.”

 

Throwing caution to the winds, Kris leant forward and kissed Tao’s sweaty forehead. “Oh, Tao-ya,” he sighed. “It doesn’t matter if your wolf is female or not. You’ll always be my Tao.”

 

Tao sighed, and his eyes slid shut once more. “Oh,” he breathed. “Okay.”

 

\---

 

 That night, Kris shared a bed with Tao.

 

It was entirely innocent—Kris just wanted to get the younger man adjusted to his fur and, hopefully, to the new design of that body. They couldn’t leave him on an IV drip of anti-anxiety drugs forever, and, more than that, Kris couldn’t leave Tao suffering. It was killing him even now, watching the drugged and dizzy swirl to the other man’s eyes as the medication slowly cleared from his bloodstream, now that the needle had been removed.

 

It took a while, but the haze eventually cleared from Tao’s eyes, until they were clear, bright, and far too aware. He didn’t have long to dwell—not on the pain, not on the strange feeling, not on the realization that everything,  _everything_  was wrong. No, before those thoughts could really start to sink in, he felt Kris pulling on his mind, tugging, nudging, until he was fully wolfed out, and then his  _duizhang_  was covering him like a living blanket.

 

Kris’s fur was soft and warm, and he pressed against Tao like he wanted to bury him, to hide him from the world in the thick safety of his coat. He nudged at the other wolf, until Tao rolled slightly onto his side, so that Kris could shove their muzzles together. He made a huffing sound, pleased, and gave Tao’s face a quick lick before settling down for a nap.

 

They woke when the door suddenly snapped shut; Kyungsoo, on food duty for the night, seemed to have left a pair of trays just inside the door. One tray held a large platter, full of seasoned chicken, but no bones. The other held two bowls of water. Clearly, it was intended that they would eat as wolves.

 

Kris left carefully off the bed and padded towards the door, followed closely by Tao. After the leader snagged the corner of the tray full of chicken in his teeth and began to drag it more towards the center of the room, Tao followed his example, delicately pushing the bowls of water in front of him with his nose.

 

They dined together, peaceably, if not delicately. There was, Tao reflected briefly, a reason that people talked about ‘wolfing down’ your food; really, the body did not lend itself to careful, delicate eating. It was hard enough to be mannerly, let alone publically dainty.

 

Not that he or Kris really tried for that; they just went for filling their tummies without injuring or insulting one another. This seemed to mean that Tao waited for Kris to eat before starting to dine himself, and that only at the other’s prompting, while Kris would occasionally offer a large bit of chicken to the other wolf, clearly wanting him to take it.

 

Between the pair of them, the plate was quickly emptied of food, and they turned their attention to the water.  Kris sniffed both offerings, and then quickly pushed one to Tao, before starting to drink from his own. He watched, wary, until the other werewolf started to drink, as well, and then settled in for slaking his thirst.

 

When he was sure that Tao had had enough to drink, Kris gently pawed at his face, making the other wolf look at him. Tao’s eyes fluttered into a happy smile, and his tongue slipped out of his mouth, an instinctive act of submission.  Kris, taking it for what it was, leant in and began grooming his friend with careful licks. He was sure to get as much of the seasoning and grease from their meal off of Tao’s fur as possible.

 

He was pleasantly surprised when, after a moment’s hesitation, Tao belly-crawled forward and offered him the same care.

 

\---

 

“I am grateful for your presence,” Kris said, falling back on his formal training as he poured coffee for the two men seated across the low table from him.

 

“We are honored by your respect,” Sunggyu said in turn, a smile lurking in his eyes, though he didn’t let it curl his lips. He accepted the coffee—though tea was traditional, for this, Kris had been raised in a Canadian pack and, besides, they were idols—with a small bow. His eyes darted to where Tao lay, wolf-bodied, head pillowed on Suho’s thigh. “And by your trust.”

 

Suho bristled at the implied threat, but remained where he was and forced himself to relax when Kris’s only response was a bland smile.

 

“Zitao is an honored member of my pack,” he said, calm as a summer’s day, now pouring coffee for Suho and himself. “And also more than capable of defending himself, regardless of body. Cream? Sugar?”

 

There was a small lull in conversation as everyone sipped at their coffee, then doctored it to their particular liking. Suho offered around a plate of biscuits and fruit, having been coached on his role in this meeting (on their home territory, for the first time) by Kris.

 

“So,” Dongwoo said finally, setting his mug carefully on the table. “Let’s be real. This isn’t a social visit.”

 

Grinning, Suho offered him another cookie. His smile widened when the other man took it with a wink.

 

Kris, watching this exchange, reached over and stroked Tao’s ears in commiseration. He wasn’t really opposed to closer ties with the other pack; in fact, setting a groundwork for a strong relationship with the Infinite Pack was definitely in the plans. He just wasn’t so sure he wanted to do so by watching Junmyeon and Dongwoo flirt over coffee before the biggest, most nerve-wracking meeting of his life.

 

Sunggyu seemed to agree with him, if the way he rolled his eyes was any indication. “So,” he said, taking another long slurp of coffee. “As Dongwoo said. Not a social visit, not really. You need info on the other packs in the area.”

 

“I need to know what I should be getting ready for,” Kris said, neither agreeing or disagreeing outright with the other alpha’s statement. “I wish for this transition—the addition of the EXO Pack into Seoul—to go as smoothly as possible.”

 

“Of course,” Sunggyu said, inclining his head, just short of a nod. “Well, let it not be said that we don’t hand down information that was given once to us. Woo-ya, stop flirting with Junmyeon and hand me that folder.”

 

His Second flushed, breaking his gaze with Suho. He reached into the bag he had brought with him, and drew out a thick plastic file folder. Placing it on the table, he looked first to his alpha and, at Sunggyu’s nod, opened it up to reveal full dossiers.

 

“When we started forming Infinite Pack,” Dongwoo explained quietly, “each of us brought what information we had about our own packs and what information our packs were willing to share about others. As we’re not really in this as Traditionalists—we don’t really need territory lines, I mean, we’re idols, so…” He shrugged.

 

Sunggyu picked up the thread. “It does us no harm to share this information with you. Now, most of the packs in our region are relatively benign. This being Seoul, as you would expect, most of them have a very modernist approach to the whole thing. Like I said before. This pack,” and he tapped a picture of a sharp-faced woman seated on a fancy couch with a tall, willowy man standing behind her, “we avoid on principle. It’s up to you if you wish to do the same; I am certainly not going to try and dictate policy to you.”

 

Kris noted the renewed flush in Dongwoo’s cheeks—a ruddy red that looked more ashamed than anything—and saw the way the other wolf slanted his eyes way, looking at the door. He also noted that the pack was labelled as the  _Jang Conglomerate Pack_. Not being nearly as much a fool as he occasionally pretended, Kris kept his mouth shut. He had no doubt that the similarity in the Pack’s name and Dongwoo’s was not incidental.

 

“Thank you,” he murmured, accepting the file as it was pushed towards him. “I will, of course, offer you my observations, as they are gathered. And, if ever a need arises for information about the packs of Greater Canada…” He let it hang.

 

“We’ll know who to call,” Sunggyu agreed. He did not look down at where his hand was now covering Dongwoo’s, seemingly all of his attention on the alpha across the table.

 

Kris nodded. “Now, you said most of the packs. Who do I need to keep an eye out for?”

 

Sunggyu leant forward, propping his arms on the table. “Dongwoo—Moon Pack?”

 

“Green tab,” Dongwoo said, now leaning forward as well. He seemed to be a little more sure in his skin, now that he had something concrete to focus on, and the conversation had moved from whatever trauma had separated him from his birth pack.

 

Kris found the file with the green tab, and shuffled the papers around to it.

 

“Moon Pack,” Sunggyu began, “is led by Moon Hyunsik. They’re very much a Traditionalist pack. A pain in everyone’s ass, frankly.  Half of the time we get called to convene, it’s because of them. The alpha enjoys nothing so much as humiliating other alphas in front of the entire meet. Last time, it was something like…what was it, Dongwoo, do you recall?”

 

Dongwoo snorted, an ugly sound. “One of the Expat Pack strayed onto his territory without permission or acknowledgement. Hyunsik, of course, demanded that the kid in question be summoned to apologise.”

 

“Which, of course, means that the kid’s alpha apologized,” Kris said, mind quickly putting two and two together (it was less traumatic than thinking about how Suho had tangled his fingers with Dongwoo). He reached out and scratched under Tao’s chin as he continued to think aloud. “Because another alpha can punish the pack, but not the alpha of the pack. And he sounds like the kind of person who would take it out on a kid just to take it out on him.”

 

“Got it in one,” Sunggyu said. “But it’s not all little stuff. A few years ago, a pair of mated wolves from one pack—a young Second-to-Be with potential to be an alpha, and her husband—submitted to the Meet that they had been coerced into the Moon Pack by a member biting their human-born son.”

 

“Bitten wolves automatically become a part of their biter’s pack,” Kris said to Suho, realizing that his Second might not be aware of that political undercurrent to this conversation. He looked to the other men. “And I assume his mother refused to reject her family bond to him? And so of course her mate followed her.”

 

Dongwoo nodded. “Moon Hyunsik insisted he was horrified— _horrified, I tell you!_ —that such spurious claims had been laid at his door. Why, his whole pack knew that the man who had bitten the child hadn’t been in his right mind! He’d done as an alpha should, of course, and put down the ill wolf. Look, here was his heart, on ice, as proof.”

 

Tao whimpered and all but shot into Kris’s lap, burying his nose in the crook of his alpha’s hip. He shivered and shook until the human man had his hands tucked into the thick ruff of fur around his neck, stroking and soothing as best he could.

 

Suho just shuddered, wide-eyed with disgust. “And he’s an  _alpha_?”

 

“Some of the ones from traditional packs are downright sociopathic,” Sunggyu said bluntly. “No contact with non-pack humans, living in secluded runs as far from humanity as they can get—they have forgotten what it’s like to be a part of the world.”

 

“Or never known,” Kris said, thinking of a few of those sorts of people he had known about as a child. “There’s one pack in North Dakota that abandons their human-born within an hour of birth. They claim that, outside of their Emissary, no one within the pack has had contact with humans since 1852.”

 

“They kill the kids?” Dongwoo squawked.

 

Kris shook his head. “No, no. Even they aren’t that bad. They’re still wolves, after all, and family’s important. I don’t think even they could bring themselves to kill a newborn smelling of their blood. The Emissary brings the baby to a local hospital, as I understand it.”

 

Sunggyu’s lip curled. “And I thought that Dongwoo had had it rough,” he grunted.

 

Suho looked between Sunggyu and his Second, but, getting no explanation beyond a squeeze of Dongwoo’s hand, said nothing.

 

“Okay,” Kris said. “A sociopath with ego issues. What else?”

 

\---

 

The alarm waking him for the Meet rang far too early. Groaning, Kris rolled over and stabbed at his phone until the cheerful chiming stopped. He peeked over his shoulder, guilty, but the tight pull in his chest eased when he saw that Tao hadn’t been woken by his alarm.

 

The other man was slowly adapting to just how much his life had changed, with some parts coming more easily than others. While he still struggled with the feminine structure of his wolf shape, it seemed that the indignity and discomfort of finding himself the wrong sex meant that shifting back to human in his sleep—and thus, nakedly snuggling another naked man—didn’t so much as blip on his radar anymore.

 

It blipped on Kris’s, though, even more so when he could feel his friend’s cock, half-hard and warm, pressing against the small of his back. He knew it was normal, knew that it was just a human reaction, but he had his limits and he had things he could handle and things he couldn’t, and this fell squarely in the category of things he was trying his hardest not to think about.  And so he quickly pulled himself from the younger man’s warm embrace. Pulling on the clothes he had laid out the night before, selected to not be too formal nor too informal, to show that he was the alpha of his independent pack, Kris watched Tao sleep.

 

His little panda  _dìdì_  was sound asleep, now curling around the pillow that Kris had abandoned. His hair, which was getting long again, splayed in an inky halo against the yellow fur of the stuffed duck he slept on. It was soft, Kris knew, because Tao hadn’t had it dyed recently. And because he had woken in the middle of the night and stroked it, much as he would Tao’s fur when he was wolfed out.

 

Kris squeezed his eyes shut and fought the urge to groan aloud. He needed to be focused on the upcoming Meet. Not on Tao.

 

Hearing Suho moving around in the hall gave him the impetus he needed to really get moving. Kris stooped forward and pressed a soft kiss to Tao’s forehead, then pulled the blanket up to better cover his bare shoulder. No sense in the younger man getting cold, after all, now that his bed partner had left. That taken care of, Kris slipped out the door, barely cracking it so that the minimum of light got in.

 

Let Tao sleep. He needed it.

 

\---

 

Listening to the alphas and their Seconds drone on and on and on, Suho was grateful that he had gotten up early enough to make coffee for himself and his alpha. Across the room, Dongwoo saluted him with his own travel mug. Idols, Suho thought, swallowing back a grin. You could take them out of the show business, at least for a moment, but there was no shaking the bone-deep weariness, or the tricks they had learnt to keep it all at bay.

 

The mere process of introducing Kris and Suho, and the pack they represented (EXO Pack, they had decided they would be called) had taken nearly two hours. Nothing could just be  _said_ , no. Every one of the alphas had to get a comment in, and that nearly always devolved into petty bickering in the guise of polite, diplomatic intercourse. And then, once Kris had finally been able to finish introducing his pack, each of the other alphas had to introduce themselves, and their seconds, and their packs. They had to explain where their packs were located, and the processes they expected EXO to follow, and so on and so forth.

 

It was enough that Suho found himself being exceedingly grateful that Kris was the one fielding this storm. He wasn’t sure that, had he found himself in the other man’s shoes, he would have been able to handle it. Kris, at least, had known about werewolves, and had been somewhat familiar with the way their packs worked. Suho had no clue, and even less than nothing to go on.

 

“Okay,” the alpha who was serving as the head of the Meet said, clapping her hands together. “Anything else we need to deal with? Any concerns about the formation of EXO Pack and their admittance into Seoul?”

 

Moon Hyunsik, his face twisted up like a rotten apple, forced himself to his feet. “I have a concern,” he said, voice silky and cruel. “I attest now that the one who bit this child’s friend” he gestured to Kris “is a member of my pack. Moon Jongho travelled abroad for work, and our pack lost contact with him until just this week. Though he was travelling, Moon Jongho maintained membership of the Moon Pack. And so, his offspring, be they born or made.” The old man’s eyes narrowed, sharp and cruel. “Thus, I assert that this little pseudo-pack falls under my oversight.”

 

Kris growled, the sound rolling up from vocal cords that were distinctly inhuman. “Your rogue bit an unknowing human,” he snarled, “and you let the infection spread, with no concern for humans in the way. Like  _hell_  will I submit.”

 

“Yifan!” Sunggyu snapped, half-rising to his feet. Behind him, Dongwoo had gone stone-faced and still.

 

Suho froze, his coffee still halfway to his mouth. Kris sounded more than angry; he sounded coldly furious, in a way that Suho hadn’t heard from him in a long, long time. The last time had been because of a screw up that had nearly injured Jongdae. He couldn’t see Kris’s face, not from where he was seated, but he could read the tension in his tight shoulders, in the sharp angle of his back.

 

The female alpha at the head of the table frowned. “Hyunsik- _ssi_ , you wish to take in the EXO Pack?”

 

“I do,” Hyunsik said, smirking at Kris before turning his attentions back to the other alpha. “They’re but children, not a one of them born wolf. While I can certainly let them live on their own, they need oversight.”

 

“Oversight—” Kris started.

 

The woman stopped him with a hand. “Yifan- _ssi,_ ” she said calmly, “I understand that you were raised in a pack, though as human-born?”

 

Kris nodded, the motion tight and sharp.

 

“And you have been in communication with your initial pack?”

 

He nodded again, the motion more fluid. “Yes, ma’am. Also with the McCall-Hale Pack in California. Additionally, packs in Seoul have been lending their knowledge, and there is a pack in China ready and able to sponsor the Chinese members of my pack, when that becomes necessary.” He smiled at her impressed look. “SM Entertainment has connections in many interesting places, and they are willing to do what it takes.”

 

“So I see. Hyunsik- _ssi_ , are you willing to accept that this pack as a separate pack, given what you know now?”

 

Hyunsik shook his head, his scowl gone dark. “No,” he said. “These children are making themselves more dangerous by thinking that they know enough. If he will not submit his pack, then I will dissolve it entire, and claim the pack by right of combat.”

 

The alpha scowled. “Hyunsik- _ssi!_ ”

 

“It’s his right,” Kris said, a hint of growl in his suddenly-chesty voice. “As it is mine to refuse his rule without my defeat.”

 

At that, Suho felt his heart stop in his chest. That couldn’t possibly mean what he thought it did, could it?

 

The woman sighed heavily, her eyes rolling to the ceiling. “Very well,” she growled out. “This dispute shall be settled by trial of combat at the full moon, exactly two months’ time. Until then, neither alpha may harry the other’s pack, nor may you attack one another. The information for when and where to meet will be communicated to the whole Meet the day before the combat trial. Both packs must have a full complement of wolves present. You may settle this privately beforehand, but it must be done peaceably, and a member of the Meet must chaperone all meetings. Am I understood?”

 

“Yes, Alpha,” Hyunsik said, smirking.

 

Kris nodded. “Yes, Alpha.” He narrowed his eyes at Hyunsik, who was already turning that vicious smirk to him, as if claiming him already.

 

He would not let his pack go to this creature, not without a fight. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Friends! Thank you for bearing with me this long! Alas, this is the final chapter of _Changes_. It is not the end of the story, as you can undoubtedly tell, but the tale will be continued soon in the next part of the TWO MOONS verse! Please keep a weather eye out for it!


End file.
